THE PEOPLE’S HANDBOOK 


OF 


SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


W. J. COLVILLE'S 

PRIVATE COURSE OF LESSONS FOR THE 
USE OF STUDENTS 


BOSTON 

Banner of Light Publishing Co. 
204 Dartmouth Street 
1902 





















































































The People’s Handbook 


OF 

Spiritual Science 



W. J. COLVILLE’S 

\\ 

Private Course of Lessons for the Use of Students 


7s 


3 



BOSTON 

Banner of Light Publishing Co. 
204 Dartmouth Street 
1902 










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FEB. 27 1902 

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1 

CONTENTS 


LESSON I 

PAGE 

Old and New Schools of Healing and their Sys¬ 
tems. Physical and Spiritual Methods . . 5 

LESSON II 

The Origin of Disease Metaphysically Considered; 

Subjective and’ Objective Causes .... 24 

LESSON III 

Positivity and Negativity; Self-Control and Self- 

Poise; Truth and Holiness or Wholeness . 42 

LESSON IV 

The Power of the Will. Divine Realization in 

Maintaining Health .54 


3 



CONTENTS 


4 


LESSON V 

The Power of the Will, and Divine Realization 
in Maintaining Health.. 

LESSON VI 

Hypnotism, Sleep, Rest and Repose as Healing 
Agents. 


PAGE 


65 


79 


f 



LESSON I 


Old and New Schools of Healing and their Systems 
Physical and Spiritual Methods 


In commencing a series of consecutive lessons we 
request the student to thoroughly digest the teaching 
conveyed in the first before attempting to study the 
second, and so on to the end of the series. We advisedly 
use the word healing in contradistinction from cure be¬ 
cause to heal means to make whole, while to cure only 
signifies to care for or tend. Curing is good in its way 
and, like all lesser good, it is included in a larger bless¬ 
ing. Did we live in complete accord with the law of 
our existence there could be no pain for us to suffer, and 
no germs of disease could possibly invade our frames. 
Indeed, it is not going too far to say that the very bacilli 
or pathogenic germs which are often erroneously sup¬ 
posed to be causes of disorder are only effects of prior 
disturbances in human life. The microbean theory of 
disease is by no means new, for we read in the Talmud 
that one of the reasons why the Jew should not eat the 
flesh of swine is because that unclean meat contains a 
small insect corresponding to the trichinae known to 
modern medical science. 


5 



6 


THE PEOPLE^ HANDBOOK 


Healing, or the science of health, has always occupied 
a prominent place in religious literature and nowhere 
more than in the Torah or Pentateuch do we find the 
strictest attention paid to every aspect of sanitary regu¬ 
lation. Health is a religious necessity; disease is 
irreligion. Sin and sickness are inseparable, and no 
better definition of sin can be found than “ transgression 
of the Law.” By Law we do not mean man-made en¬ 
actments, but eternal and universal order. Sin and 
sickness enter and leave the world together. By sin 
we mean every sort of blunder and mistake voluntary 
and involuntary, therefore we do not raise the question 
whether the original producing cause of sickness was 
anything more than some error into which our remote 
ancestors in some manner involuntarily fell. 

Physical methods of treating sufferers are not always 
wrong, but -they are in every case inadequate to remove 
the. cause of physical disturbance, and every student of 
mental practice must hasten to acquaint himself with 
the idea that disease itself (like health) is mental 
though the effects of botli are physical. 

Health is Order; Disease is Disorder. Let us now 
proceed to work from this accepted axiom. Order and 
health being the same ; discord and disease being like¬ 
wise synonymous, it is the work of every one who 
attempts to heal others to set to work to attain in his 
own life to those states of harmony toward which he 
wisely seeks to lead his neighbors. Health is so vast a 
word that it can only be defined as wholeness, which is 
properly identical with holiness. The New Testament 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


7 


writers, in recounting the marvellous works of healing 
with which the Gospel narratives abound, have very 
explicitly stated that people were made “ every whit 
whole,” a singularly forcible expression, one moreover 
which is susceptible of treatment from an evolutionary 
and educational standpoint. To be made whole is to be 
perfected, but absolute perfection pertains to the Infinite 
only; relative perfection is, • however, the legitimate 
heritage of every living being. 

Why should there be imperfection in any other sense 
than that of incompleteness? Fruit is naturally green, 
sour and hard before it has become sweet, luscious and 
beautiful; but there need be no devouring insect or 
unwholesome blight upon the vines because the time 
for rich clusters of grapes has not arrived. One of the 
very first steps to be taken toward qualification for 
the practice of mental or spiritual healing is to logically 
demonstrate the unnecessariness of disease. 

We cannot say in the face of phenomenal evidences 
to its presence that disease has no terrestrial existence, 
but we can claim, and we do claim, that it lias no neces¬ 
sary, inevitable, or invincible existence. Let this point 
be clearly taken by the student. There must be no dis¬ 
crepancy in statement, no discord between theory and 
practice. I-t will never do to say there is nothing what¬ 
ever ailing a patient and then proceed to accept a fee 
for overcoming a state that never existed. There is no 
necessary disease, therefore all disease is vincible. They 
(apostles) shall heal all who are suffering regardless of 
the special variety of disorder which has afflicted the 


8 


THE PEOPLE’S HANDBOOK 


invalids who are brought to the notice of the apostles. 
Such is the teaching of the Gospel. 

“ The prophets who were before you is a great say¬ 
ing,- for the prophets were the only true and great healers 
among ancient Jews, and their successors are the only 
healers worthy of the name to-day. The oldest and the 
newest schools of healing are identical in doctrine and 
in practice, therefore the.Bible student and the Vedant- 
ist may alike find proof of healing in the different books 
which each elects to study. The prophets who were 
the ancient healers were men and women who lived not 
only exemplary, but extraordinary, lives, and so entirely 
aloof from the common mode of life did they stand that 
by reason of their heavenly eccentricities they attained 
to so thorough a command over material conditions that 
they could easily accomplish many mighty works entirely 
beyond the reach of even the purest and wisest priests 
engaged in Temple service. In old Egypt in the very 
long ago the Therapeutce were looked upon as a people 
who enjoyed singular communion with the divinities, 
and never does a modern physician take the JEsculapian 
oath without calling to the remembrance of all who 
know something of classic mythology the story of the 
Greek god iEsculapius who was the guardian divinity or 
special spiritual patron of all who practised occult and 
natural medicine. 

Doctor Franz Hartmann, who has devoted much ability 
to a modern interpretation of the mediaeval medical 
sj^stem of Paracelsus distinguishes very clearly in his 
treatise “ Occult Science in Medicine ” between five 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


9 


kinds of doctors, two of which are simply physicians, 
while the other three are healers to some extent in the 
physical sense of the term. Those who deal exclusively 
in so-called natural or botanic remedies are handling 
psychic agencies without their own knowledge, but they 
are so unaware of the occult elements in the vegetable 
products they manipulate as to be unable to see farther 
than the most external or superficial plane of Nature’s 
manifestations. Those who are chiefly dependent upon 
their own individual good character for the work they 
accomplish are realty mental practitioners, no matter 
under what technical flag they may ostensibly sail; 
while those who rely on purely spiritual power for suc¬ 
cess in their work belong to a category where their 
relation to the prophets of antiquity is easily discovered. 

It is not our object in this course of lessons to call 
particularized attention to all the many schools of 
medical and mental practice with which the world has 
been flooded, only to present as vividly as possible the 
striking contrasts exhibited in method and the surprising 
unity in result of righteous treatment. 

It is a well-known fact that Allopathy and Homoe¬ 
opathy are diametrically opposed to each other, alike in 
theory and practice. How comes it then that the self¬ 
same results frequently follow upon two courses of 
administration which no amount of verbal juggling can 
possibly harmonize ? These two schools are both legal 
in the United States to-day, and though the term 
“ Regular ” is applied to itself by one of the schools, 
as though the other were irregular, the followers of 


10 


THE PEOPLE^ HANDBOOK 


Hahnemann are just as much protected by the State as 
are the “ Regulars.” 

Outside of these two accepted schools, Eclecticism 
flourishes, and as it is the proud boast of the Eclectic 
that he combines the good in all systems, we can readily 
see that if he lives up to his profession he may do 
greater good than either of his less free-minded com¬ 
petitors. 

Again, outside of recognized medical eclectics we find 
magnetists, medical electricians and all sorts of peculiar 
people advertising nostrums and professing to heal, 
sometimes by laying on of hands and often in far more 
eccentric fashion. These peculiar people all score some 
successes, all do some good, indeed all supply help in 
some mysterious cases of nervous derangement with 
which more ordinary persons have wrestled in vain. 

Leaving the field of materia medica and allied (so- 
called) quackery, we enter another realm of workers, 
viz., the company of those who avowedly rely exclu¬ 
sively on mental means of cure ; but here again we en¬ 
counter serious differences, divergencies so great (as, 
for example, between Mrs. Eddy’s system of Christian 
Science and the Mental Science taught by Mrs. Wil- 
mans) that it seems impossible to reconcile such widely 
opposite ideas. 

Knowing as we do that no single system monopolizes 
truth and that no one-sided advocacy of a fragment of a 
true philosophy of life can embrace the whole of effi¬ 
cient scientific teaching, we label our own philosophy 
Spiritual Eclecticism, awaiting the advent of a still 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 11 

better and yet more expressive term. Our students 
will find as they study our lessons that our range of 
reasoning is wide, but we are not led into contradictions 
because we do not wish to be exclusive. Only a wide, 
inclusive system of teaching can possibly steer clear of 
absurd contradictions, as all narrow views must sooner 
or later suffer by being brought into collision with actual 
facts and indisputable phenomena which severely shake 
though they do not entirely shatter them. 

God is Omnipresent Life, Love, Wisdom. God 
being everywhere present at all times, we do not have 
to seek God in any special place or in any particular 
manner. 

What follows upon this declaration? Surely nothing 
less than what Tennyson has called in his sublime 
poetry “Higher Pantheism” can satisfy the logical in¬ 
tellect which seeks to accept spiritual truth in a reason¬ 
able manner. Every thoughtful reader of the 139tli 
Psalm must have grown familiar with the old Jewish 
thought of God at its highest and best, which one of 
England’s poets laureate has re-expressed in somewhat 
altered form. 

The ancient Psalmist sings, “ If I ascend into heaven 
thou art there, if I descend into Sheol thou art there 
also.” Heaven and Sheol are the two extremes, the 
highest and the lowest limits of finite thought and 
speech. God is in both. “ I cannot flee from thy pres¬ 
ence ” is the summing up of the argument, the close of 
the meditation. 

Tennyson converses poetically with a little flower 


12 


THE PEOPLE’S HANDBOOK 


which he has taken out of a crannied wall; he holds the 
tender blossom in his hand and sa}^s to it, “ If I knew 
all about you, little flower, I would understand God as 
well.as man.” But though he knows something about 
the flower, though far from everything, he satisfies him¬ 
self with affirming “ All is love and all is law.” This 
is only another version of David. True healers are not 
quibblers or pedants. 

Pedagogy has no power to heal the sick, for the heart 
of healing-force is loving kindness, and the pedagogue 
when not actively cruel is often .decidedly unkind. 
Cruelty is the active inversion of love ; unkindness is 
the cold, clammy condition in which we are wellnigh 
destitute of affection, which is the fire of life. 

Mental healers, in company with practitioners of all 
schools, have been hitherto desirous of confirming dog¬ 
mas, of establishing cut and dried systems of formulated 
teaching; that has been their chief mistake. Every 
system needs humiliating whenever it vaunts itself as 
the only true system. No system is altogether true, for 
all our treasures are put into poor earthen vessels. 

Accept God and do not seek to limit God, for limita¬ 
tion of the Divine is absurdity. Accept tho goodness 
of the universe. Whatever is real is good, and what¬ 
ever is indestructible is immortal. Every student needs 
to be well drilled here. You cannot teach, you cannot 
explain yourself, until you are clear as crystal on what 
you mean by the absoluteness of good. All the meta¬ 
physical practitioners are at one in their use of the 
phrase “ All is good.” It is a fundamental axiom, but 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


13 


it needs popular explanation equally with Pope’s saying, 
“ Whatever is is right.” 

We have now plunged into deep waters; we are at 
the heart of our theme. We must conjugate accurately 
Subsistere , Esse , and Exist ere, and not confound the 
terms. Subsistence and being are totally distinct from 
existence. 

The whole difficulty confronted by honest people who 
are struggling with metaphysical declarations which 
seem obscure to them arises out of a failure to employ 
different words in a distinctly different sense. The 
great “ Standard Dictionary ” issued by Funk and Wag- 
nalls, of New York, out of a vocabulary of something 
over three hundred thousand words contains about sixty 
thousand synonyms. This may be at present a conven¬ 
ience for the student, but ultimately we are certain that 
no such a book can exist as an accepted expositor of 
correct diction, for our interchangeable terms will grow 
fewer and fewer as we make progress in the direction of 
clear thought and, consequently, of clear, concise speak¬ 
ing. You cannot say to any one who may be suffering 
great pain, “ You do not suffer,” without arousing sharp 
and needless opposition in your student in many in¬ 
stances. Nothing can sound falser to one who is af¬ 
flicted with fierce'pain than the seemingly heartless and 
untruthful assertion, “ You are in no distress whatever.” 

But even if such language be employed in mental 
treatment (we are not recommending its use), it is quite 
possible that the oiie who employs it in practice may be 
holding to a great idea which is completely in accord 


14 


THE PEOPLE’S HANDBOOK 


with the purest and most truthful teaching. There are 
two of evety one of us : a higher and a lower self. The 
higher ego is the teacher, or healer, the lower being the 
pupil, or patient. Now, if we clearly understand that 
there are two selves in every one of us, and that it is the 
province of the healer, or doctor, to address the inner, or 
higher, self and call upon it to address the outer, or lower, 
self, there is no real inaccuracy in such an affirmation 
as “ You are well” even though the subordinate self is 
very far from well. It is not always easy, or even pos¬ 
sible in every case, to explain everything to an invalid 
during the term of his sickness, therefore the path of 
wisdom is to speak your strongest convictions silently 
in any terms you please, but when you are using oral 
suggestion, confine yourself to such language as will not 
grate upon the sensitive ears of the patient. 

We now come to consider the respective uses of dif¬ 
ferent modes of mental suggestion. We will place 
Silent Suggestion in the first rank, because a great deal 
more can often be said silently than aloud. 

Whenever we think, we mentally speak. The Greek 
logos can be translated by will and thought as well as by 
word, and even when ivord is the given translation, the 
mental word must be conceived of as prior to its physical 
expression. When we think, we necessarily discover 
that our thoughts are in form, and these forms are of 
two varieties, viz., forms of mental speech, or silent 
language, and forms of objects which we may call 
mental pictures which we see with the “ mind’s eye.” 
When you are giving a mental treatment to yourself or 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


15 


to another, you must make a mental picture of the ideal 
state which you desire to express, or else repeat to your¬ 
self or to the other such words and sentences as seem to 
embody the desired mental pictures in equivalent forms 
of speech. 

The theory of silent treatment is that mental pictures 
are transferable and that words uttered in silence are 
mentally communicated from one person to another 
without the aid of any material agent such as we can 
ordinarily discern. The mesmeric theory of animal 
magnetism, or Reichenbach’s view of odyllic force, may 
be correct or otherwise, but we do not need it for our 
purpose. That there is a psychic and an electro-mag¬ 
netic radiation of force from the active centre of human 
consciousness especially at work in giving a suggestive 
treatment is highly probable, but all we need to be con¬ 
vinced of is that there is some means whereby mental 
impressions are communicated from the active thought- 
centre of a mental telegraphist to the receptive thought- 
centre of one who is en rapport with the telegrapher. 

Wireless telegraphy, as illustrated in Marconi’s cele¬ 
brated system, offers many valuable hints concerning the 
means whereby thoughts can be sent from one brain to 
another. There certainly are discharges of psychic force 
when mental treatments are sincerely given. Though 
there is no warrant for supposing that the healer is an 
operator and the patient a subject in the old use of those 
terms, we cannot doubt that the one (healer) can be 
correctly described as a sender , and the other (patient) 
as a receiver . Sending and receiving being perfectly 


16 


THE PEOPLE’S HANDBOOK 


agreeable words, suggesting naught of coercion on one 
side and submission on the other, we employ them in 
all our lessons. 

It is not difficult to conceive of a certain chord-setting 
in one brain awakened to more than average activity 
while a similar and, therefore, naturally corresponding 
chord-setting in another brain may be unusually dor¬ 
mant. Whoever gives a silent mental treatment suc¬ 
cessfully causes the chord-setting which is especially 
inactive in the brain of a depressed invalid to commence 
vibrating synchronously with the corresponding centre 
which in his own brain is particularly active. 

Silent contact often accomplishes more than speech, 
because conversation often serves to dissipate energy 
over a wide territory and whatever gains in diffusive¬ 
ness is apt to lose in concentration. Our very highest 
and deepest thoughts and feelings are beyond utter¬ 
ance ; the utmost that we can utter is much less than 
we inwardly apprehend; thus there is a valid justifica¬ 
tion for silent suggestion at this point alone, viz., the 
question of intensity. 

If you do not feel that a silent treatment suffices, or 
if it does not seem real to you, then it is right and 
indeed necessary for you to employ oral or visual sug¬ 
gestion to render your work intelligible to yourself, and 
though it is impossible to discover (in all cases) how 
far a patient realizes a treatment, it is always impera¬ 
tive that whoever gives one should feel intensely the 
power of the treatment he or she is seeking to admin¬ 
ister. Whenever you give a silent suggestion you must 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


17 


make yourself realize its potency before seeking to im¬ 
press another with its value, and this realization brings 
us to the need of faith, a word which always needs clear 
definition. Before you attempt to inspire a patient with 
confidence in the efficacy of your work or system, you 
must believe firmly in it yourself. Confidence is highly 
contagious at all times and in all circumstances. 

When in Europe during the Middle Ages people 
believed unfalteringly in the efficacy of the king’s touch, 
the Divine right of kings was undisputed. The king 
believed in himself as God’s representative, and the 
people whom he touched regarded him as a divinely 
appointed messenger. Very likely, some certain king 
may have been a sickly and dissolute man, but the 
populace revered the kingly office, not of necessity its 
immediate incumbent. If they received no benefit from 
the king’s person, they, by an auto-suggestive process, 
put themselves into a mental attitude whereby they 
became receptive to the universal healing elixir which, 
though omnipresent, enters into us and circulates through 
us only to the extent that we are open to receive it and 
place no obstacles in the way of its free circulation 
within us. All the absurdities and repulsiveness of 
mediaeval medical practice were just so many props on 
which superstitious people leaned ; these practices have 
their less offensive successors to-day in bread pills, 
colored water, hypodermic injections of warm water, 
etc., all of which are paltry external aids to suggestion 
and to concentration of thought upon the idea of health 
or harmony. 


18 


THE PEOPLE’S HANDBOOK 


Silent treatment when carried sufficiently far becomes 
absent treatment, which is far more wonderful still than 
simply silent treatment and arouses increased scepticism 
in many quarters. How can you treat people you have 
never seen? is a very common inquiry, the adequate 
answer to which involves much deeper study of human 
nature than is ordinarily attempted. T. J. Hudson and 
a few other exceptional modern writers have written 
books in exposition of the method of telepathy, but for 
at least nine hundred and ninety-nine persons out of 
every average thousand explanations fail to elucidate 
the stupendous problem. Sir William Crookes’s theory 
of brain waves and universal ether suggests a reasonable 
solution, but only one in the thousand is usually capable 
of following a difficult scientific interpretation. 

We are wise when we are satisfied to begin with facts 
and then theorize upon them, in preference to starting 
with theories and then seeking facts to confirm them. 
It is an undeniable occurrence (frequently being every¬ 
where repeated) that many persons distinctly feel and 
know much concerning what is occurring at a consider¬ 
able distance from their material whereabouts. This 
knowledge is sometimes conveyed in sleep and comes in 
form of dreams and visions; but it often invades our 
waking consciousness and startles us at midday with 
its intense vividity. We do not know what to make of 
it until we have received confirmation of its truth 
through ordinary channels. 

To attribute everything uncommon to either imagin¬ 
ation or coincidence , as many people do, is to take a 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


19 


simpleton’s refuge in two unexplained words which 
leave the question exactly where we found it. In the 
strictly scientific usage of those words they may prove 
adequate, though in their popular acceptance they only 
afford refuge for an ignoramus. Imagination is mental 
imaging, and mental imagery frequently suffices to 
bring about marvellous and wholly unexpected changes 
in the physique which is in direct correspondence with 
the psyche which does the imaging. Coincident phe¬ 
nomena are merely events which are contemporary, and. 
while it often happens that one person thinks of some¬ 
thing at apparently the same instant with another, there 
may have certainly been the lapse of some fraction of a 
second during which intelligence has been flashed from 
one intellect to another. People who are in much nat¬ 
ural .sympathy with each other can often do the very 
best telepathic work together without any previous ac¬ 
quaintance or preconcerted arrangement; but where 
these necessary psychic elements are lacking, or present 
only in small degree, results are generally difficult and 
dubious. 

Though we are not prepared to deny that there is a 
psychical side to everything, and that therefore those 
who employ physical remedial agents are doing some 
measure of mental good in many instances, we are 
never prepared to grant that the lower can do as much 
good as can the higher method ; consequently we claim 
for spiritual therapeutic systems vastly more than for 
materia medica. Furthermore, as we cannot entirely 
dissociate intelligence from matter in any instance ot 



20 


THE PEOPLES HANDBOOK 


deny that spirit can and does pervade and permeate the 
entirety of the universe, we have banished such words 
as “ insentient ” and “ dead ” from our vocabulary. 
What genuine scientist is prepared to speak of “dead” 
or “insentient” substance if called upon to give a final 
analysis of his idea of substance. 

The following Table of Gradation is found helpful by 
many students and may prove of service to all. The 
seven-fold expression of life is acknowledged by all stu¬ 
dents of Theosophy. The seven planes in Man, and in 
the Universe which contains us all, may be thus liter¬ 
ally and at the same time symbolically stated. 

(1) A. Red. Mineral Kingdom or realm. 

(2) B. Orange. Vegetable Kingdom or realm. 

(3) C. Yellow. Animal. 

(4) D. Green. Animal-Human (seat of all earthly 
propensities). 

(5) E. Blue. Mental-Human (seat of intellectual 
consciousness). 

(6) F. Indigo. Moral-Human (seat of all moral 
aspiration). 

(7) 6r. Violet. Spiritual-Human (seat of intuitive 
perception of Divinity). 

Octave. White. Perfect Unit. Divine Life. Uni¬ 
versal. Infinite. 

As it is botli possible and profitable to introduce 
music and color into the objective as well as on the sub¬ 
jective side of healing ministry, we advise all students 
to make use of tones and colors according to their com¬ 
prehension of tone and color significance; they will 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


21 


thereby greatly add to their efficiency and ability to 
reach successfully great varieties of cases. If it be con¬ 
ceded that all the lower planes are simply fractional ex¬ 
pressions of the higher, we can easily steer clear of 
every vestige of bigotry and intolerance, for it is as 
though one child could discriminate between only two 
sounds and colors, while his elder brother or sister could 
as easily distinguish between three or four or even a 
still larger number of notes and hues. If you have 
only one-seventh of something and your neighbor has 
two, three, four, five or six sevenths of the same thing, 
he can of course do already proportionately more than 
you can, but there is no reason whatever why you 
should not attain unto the same elevation in your own 
experience. 

It may not be true that alleged mental methods of 
treatment are completely right ones, but they are more 
right than the lesser and lower methods which they 
effectively supersede. What the lesser cannot do, the 
greater does and does easily. 

In the light of the foregoing, the student is prepared 
to take a rational survey of all methods of practice now 
in vogue and equally of those which, though once pop¬ 
ular, have long since fallen into disuse. It cannot be 
that what was once a veritable healing balm is now 
worthless *, but it is true that the confidence of the 
people is often transferred from one centre of activity 
to another. Thus schools arise and fade, but the good 
that is in them all abides perpetually. 

This age being preeminently one of renascence and of 


22 


THE PEOPLE’S HANDBOOK 


rediscovery, we are witnessing the steady rehabilitation 
in somewhat new garments of many an antiquated curi¬ 
osity in the therapeutic as well as in every other field. 
Our wisest course must ever be to cling to the very 
highest we at present comprehend and still let our 
motto be forevermore, EXCELSIOR. 


LESSON II 

The Origin of Disease Metaphysically Considered 
Subjective and Objective Causes 


To simplify all that could be said on the origin and 
nature of disease so far as to condense volumes into a 
single word, it is only necessary to remember that dis¬ 
order is the term universally regarded as descriptive of 
all unhealthy or abnormal conditions of mind or body. 
Order and health are one; disorder and disease are one 
also. Disease is not the polar opposite, but the con¬ 
tradictory of health. Active evil cannot be the absence, 
but must be the inversion of good; in like manner, dis¬ 
order is not simply a negative condition, but is a state 
induced by the misuse, either knowingly or ignorantly, 
of some one or more of our faculties or powers. It is 
quite true that darkness is only the absence of light, 
and cold the absence of heat in many instances, but 
this is only the strictly negative side of a great subject 
which needs positively affirmative treatment ere we can 
so elucidate our position as to make it intelligible to 
the multitude. 

Chemists speak of sixty-four primary substances or 
chemical elements (some declare in favor of a still 

23 



24 


The people’s handbook 


larger number), but no chemist, so far as we are aware, 
ever speaks of any one of these sixty-four or more pri¬ 
maries as being bad, evil, corrupt, or, indeed, anything 
other than good and useful. Still, we often hear of 
poisonous ingredients, and, further, of miscompounded 
prescriptions and of many mistakes made by inexperi¬ 
enced or careless pharmacists resulting in grave danger 
to those who are the victims of such mistakes. There 
need be no poisons in the world and there will be none 
when we have reached the long-promised Golden Age. 
But looking closer into the subject we are led to change 
the expression and say Golden State in preference to 
Golden Age, because age suggests a period of time just 
so near and just so far distant, while state conveys the 
correct impression of a condition to be reached, not by 
passing of time, but by our own intelligent activities. 
There is so much of truth in even the garbled forms of 
all chemical teachings which are accessible to the gen¬ 
eral reader, for, both figuratively and literally, transmu¬ 
tation is a word of mighty import and one which evolu¬ 
tionists even of the materialistic schools are not averse 
to using. 

The ideal condition of the human body and of regen¬ 
erated society is spoken of as the result of a transmuta- 
tive process. The “ old serpent ” has been “ taken up,” 
and when elevated, can be no longer a rock of offence 
or cause for stumbling. Sin, sickness and death are 
said to have entered the world together, long ago in 
Eden, and when humanity is fully redeemed from the 
ancient curse there will be no more sin, sickness and 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


25 


death. This is an extremely important point to em¬ 
phasize, because, while there is very much of truth in 
the famous saying quoted by so many metaphysical 
practitioners, “ There is neither sin, sickness nor death 
in real being,” it is easily possible to confuse rather 
than enlighten, and at the same time to arouse much 
unnecessary antagonism in your theory and practice 
also, by saying that sin, sickness and death have no 
existence in the material universe. 

It can never be necessary to commit a sin against 
charity, but such sin we are sure to commit if we per¬ 
sist in declaring that all illnesses are due to wilful in¬ 
fractions of Divine or natural order. The general con¬ 
fession in the Book of Common Prayer of the Anglican 
and American Episcopal churches contains a sentence 
upon which many avowed Mental Scientists have com¬ 
mented most adversely; but in our judgment such an¬ 
imadversion is altogether unnecessary if people would 
only stop to define the Avords and endeavor to get back 
of obA T ious expressions to the underlying thought of their 
authors. “We have done those things which we ought 
not to have done,” coupled with the kindred acknowl¬ 
edgment, “We have left undone those things which 
yve ought to have done,” must lead logically to what 
follows in the general confession, “and there is no health 
in us.” What can such a sentence mean ? Rightly 
interpreted, it is by no means as irreconcilable Avitli the 
idea of intrinsic human nobility as it may at first appear. 
Health means Avholeness, perfect order, complete syim 
me try of mind and body ; there can, therefore, be no 


26 


THE PEOPLE^ HANDBOOK 


perfection so long as we are guilty of faults of commis¬ 
sion or of omission, even though we may frankly state 
that mistakes and errors in judgment are not to be 
classed with wilful trangressions of the moral code. 

“ Sin is the transgression of the Law.” We talk 
vainly, ignorantly, stupidly, of breaking the Law. Once 
for all let it be known and accepted as a truism, that no 
one ever has broken or ever will, for no one ever can, 
break the Law, but whosoever resists the Law or throws 
himself even ignorantly against it gets broken. The 
Law violates its antagonist, but it is never violated. It 
is essentially necessary that we shall all see this plainly, 
for unless we see it we can have no comprehension of 
how it comes to pass that sin, sorrow, sickness, and all 
manner of distresses are in a world the substance of 
which is all good, pure and everlasting, the incorrupti¬ 
ble expression of infinite and eternal Divinity. 

The subjective, or interior, side of disorder must ever 
be its primary side; the objective, or apparent, physical 
symptoms which we commonly call disorders are not 
diseases, properly speaking, but only the results of final 
ultimates thereof. Doing and leaving undone are usu¬ 
ally looked upon as altogether physical acts; offences 
and negligences which meet the external eye, or assail 
one or the other of the five animal senses. To do and 
to leave undone must be construed mentally, or we have 
no base or foundation for any moral fabric. 

The Sermon on the Mount and all the Gospel teach¬ 
ings abound with forceful applications of the subjective 
theory of order and disorder. On the bright side we 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


27 


are told of a poor widow who put two small coins into 
the treasury, and of her it was said she had contributed 
more than all they who had thrown in precious nuggets 
of gold and imposing talents of silver. On the dark 
side we are are told that those who are in the love of 
any offence and commit it in their hearts are guilty of it. 

Many people professed to he scandalized at the por¬ 
trayal of “ Lady Sybil ” in Marie Corelli’s u Sorrows of 
Satan,” because the most awful portions of that amaz¬ 
ing novel struck at the root of a corrupt tree and did 
not spare gilded infamy. Swedenborg had long before 
told us that a man is his affections, and that love or the 
will (the two being identical) must determine every 
one’s station in the world of spirit. It is not pleasant 
to hear unpalatable truths, but why should truth at any 
time be other than palatable ? If the law of the uni¬ 
verse is such that Nature makes sewers and drains to 
carry off impurities, and brings forth scavengers to in¬ 
habit earth and air and sea, yea, and to dwell in human 
blood also, to remove abominations, what right have 
we to vilify the microbe, to execrate the pathogenic 
germ, or to curse bacteria ? 

All the attempted cleaning of the outside - of our 
cups and platters is a wretched farce. We ought to be 
brave enough to face the music, and instead of taking 
refuge in inoculation or compulsory vaccination or 
lymph, or some sort of animal extract, we should cleanse 
the interior of our temples from all defiling thoughts; 
for by such means only can we cleanse our Augean 
stables and do Herculean work successfully. It is not 


28 


THE PEOPLE^ HANDBOOK 


drinking, chewing, smoking or aught else external 
which does the most vital injury to the community; it 
is the mental state back of these foolish, ignorant and 
often harmful practices that needs to be attacked and 
overcome. 

Occult science is a marvellous eye-opener, and every 
true Gospel preacher is a genuine occultist, for occult¬ 
ism deals with causes before it seeks to tamper with 
effects. We must be clear upon the most vital of all 
points, viz., the supreme importance of the inner life of 
thought, emotion, imagination and desire as the source 
whence all external conditions are either wilfully pre¬ 
cipitated, or automatically projected. “ Out of the 
abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh ” and “ As 
a man thinketh in his heart so is he ” are two rigidly 
scientific statements. Directly we understand that heart 
stands unmistakably for the centre of feeling, no matter 
whether that centre be literally or organically in the 
brain or in the heart, we grow clear on the subject of 
our affections. 

Speaking physiologically, we do not hesitate to say 
that the brain is the entire body in miniature, and that 
from itras a complete centre and from its various sections 
as sub-centres every part of the widely extending 
organism, even to the points of the extremities, must be 
supplied by constant inflow of vitality. Whatever 
deranges the affectional centres in the brain induces 
degeneration of the heart. Thus, all heart difficulties 
and dangers are primarily traceable to disorderly or 
repressed affections. It is indeed difficult, though not 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


29 


impossible, at the present day to trace every local or 
functional aberration in every person to some specific 
mental discord in the psychic and thence in the physical 
love-centres of that particular person; but to the inner 
eye of the penetrative seer, these are only t two broad 
generalizations, possible when we are seeking to account 
for manifest abnormalities. 

At the beginning of this lesson, we drew attention to 
two kinds of evil. The negative sort may be dismissed 
as simply absence of good; the positive variety being 
inversion or perversion of good. Timid, e£sy-going 
people whose favorite motto is apt to be, “ Anything for 
a quiet life,” are certainly not very much addicted to 
gross mental vices, i. e ., they are not generally avaricious 
to any great extent, nor are they strongly revengeful or 
vindictive. As a whole they live comparatively inno¬ 
cent and harmless lives, so far as their own volitional 
conduct goes. But extreme timidity being in itself a 
vice — even though largely a negative one — these 
weak-minded, weak-willed, easity-led persons are, in 
consequence of irresoluteness, easily led to do dastardly 
deeds at the bidding of those stronger than themselves. 
Such persons are constantly yielding to something 
closely akin to adverse hypnotic or mesmeric influence, 
often to influences unknowingly exerted upon them. 

Contagion and infection are two words of extremely 
extended application, and it is with the mental side of 
the meaninof of these terms that the student of mental 
healing lias practically to deal. Affections are always 
primal causes, and though no one may be in the affection 


30 the people’s handbook 

of a physical malady, i. e ., no one may desire to suffer 
from a painful illness, thousands are in love with the 
errors which induce physical disturbances, though 
totally ignorant of the connection between their loves 
and the effects thereof. 

Among mental states which lead to disastrous conse¬ 
quences, the love of ease at the expense of right is 
extremely common. Suppose, for example, that we are 
secretly and silently indulging some thought of unkind¬ 
ness or encouraging some jealous feeling toward a 
neighbor, we may be, all unconsciously to ourselves, 
rendering ourselves liable to the contagion of a disorder 
which first enters the world as a direct result of errone¬ 
ous affection we are entertaining. Were we to cast out 
that base feeling and entertain a diametrically opposed 
impulse, we should thereby so transform the plastic 
substance of our bodies that we should become super- 
susceptible, or immune. The disorderly condition of 
the atmosphere in our immediate surrounding might 
continue, but we should be no longer in correspondence 
with it, having passed into a totally different realm of 
correspondency. We can never afford to be unmindful 
of Swedenborg’s masterly declaration, “ Thought gives 
presence, love yields conjunction.” We are conjoined 
only with what we love, but we are in the presence of 
whatever we think about; thus are we continually 
bringing before us mental images the exact reverse of 
what would be well for us to imagine. 

To counteract these unpleasant and hurtful images it 
is necessary to gain a degree of control over imagination 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


31 


and memory seldom attempted because rarely believed 
possible. Memory and imagination are largely insepar¬ 
able ; they are companion faculties, though it may of 
course be argued that memory deals altogether with 
retrospect, while imagination is continually looking 
forward. Though we may have weakly yielded to many 
unwholesome impressions in the past, or up till now, we 
are under no sort of necessity to go on yielding to 
similar impressions from now onward. To-day is always 
an accepted time. We can reverse our mental pictures 
and gain new power over the contents of our mental 
art galleries, and this we must do if we would enjoy 
health in the future which we have not enjoyed in 
times past. 

No one really believing that disease is necessary and 
inevitable can make any progress toward effectually 
vanquishing it until he has come to take an entirely 
reverse view of human possibilities. Just so long as we 
live in what Fletcher and other useful writers have 
called “ fear thought,” we shall be liable, at any time, 
to suffer from unknown and seemingly accidental 
causes; but directly we have come to a realizing sense 
of our ability to choose whether we will subject our¬ 
selves to floating influences, we shall begin to take our 
health into our own hands and commence steering our 
barks where formerly we allowed them to drift with the 
current regardless of whither the stream was flowing. 
We must first get on to the solid rock as concerns right 
affection. 

Our second great step will be to get on to solid. 


32 


THE PEOPLE’S HANDBOOK 


ground as concerns our expectation. Will first, under¬ 
standing next in order. We will take it for granted 
that every reader of these lines sincerely wishes to 
enjoy health in the fullest meaning of that majestic 
word, but how few (if any) of us know, to any great 
extent, how to gain possession of this inestimable boon. 
We have been so long subject to erratic influences from 
all around that chart and compass in our own hands is 
quite a new experience. 

We first close the door against disorderly interior 
influences by opening our inmost selves to those particu¬ 
lar interior goods to which the evils we desire to be 
delivered from are diametrically opposed. “ Whatso¬ 
ever things are excellent, think on these things,” and 
we must add, think definitely on that particular excel¬ 
lent tiling which, in your present crisis, you feel you 
stand most in need of. Though it is quite true that we 
are not irredeemably conjoined to errors we do not love, 
we are held often for a long time by the fascination of 
fear in close presence with what we hate. 

It is never safe to advise young students or any im¬ 
mature persons to contemplate disorderly conditions, 
thereby endeavoring to lock them down. All really 
safe advice concerns the strictly affirmative side of 
mental practice. Meditation on a desired goal helps us 
toward that goal, while fear of not reaching it prolongs 
our journey thither and causes us to wander with uncer¬ 
tain steps in a howling wilderness. Though it is always 
highty essential to thus generalize upon the topic of 
mental causation before proceeding to particulars, it is 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


33 


quite natural that if particular aspects of so great a sub¬ 
ject are omitted, students not unreasonably cavil at the 
omission. 

One of the chief difficulties at this late day in human 
history is to trace to-day’s sufferings to a far yesterday’s 
transgressions, and particularly is this the case when, as 
often happens, a most amiable, sweet-tempered, pure- 
minded person is afflicted with some chronic distemper 
which rigid sticklers for the law of correspondence can¬ 
not but attribute to some offensive form of sin for origin. 
Deafness, blindness and a host of other afflictions, both 
partial and complete, acute as well as chronic, must 
have originated, according to Swedenborg and other 
seers, with some wilful turning away from Divine love 
and wisdom. But these estimable people who are now 
suffering the consequences of this ancient deflection or 
original sin are in no sense wilfully opposed to truth 
and goodness and are in no way desirous of turning 
away from inner light and heavenly music. 

Here we confront the tremendous problem of heredity, 
with which all the sages of the world have wrestled, 
and with which many a conscientious philosopher is 
struggling still. “ Parents have eaten sour grapes and 
children’s teeth are set on edge ” is a biblical metaphor 
often quoted; but is it right that this should be even if 
it is the case ? This is a very solemn question continu¬ 
ally being raised, and to answer it is no easy task. The 
whole justification for the theosophic doctrines of karma 
and reincarnation seems to lie in the claim that they and 
they alone can settle this problem, Annie Besant’s 


84 


THE PEOPLE’IS HANDBOOK 


“Ancient Wisdom,” Sinnett’s “Growth of the Soul” 
and many other books written in similar strain enter 
elaborately into these questions, and to many minds 
they approximately answer them. 

Granting now that the theosophical solution of this 
immense problem may be the true one, the query next 
presented is what should be our attitude toward the 
effect of our sins committed in previous lives supposing 
we are now paying a penalty for them. Here let it be 
interjected that all consequences must be regarded as 
educational and remedial if we would deal equitably 
with ourselves and others, and justice to one’s self as 
well as to others is a necessary virtue. If I am reaping 
what I, in company with others, have sown, if I belong 
to a certain family of souls, and I and my companions 
are reaping the direful effects of false and foolish sowing 
in a scarce remembered pa it, what must I do to change 
the current of tendency and so grasp hold of the reins 
that, instead of being driven henceforth by “adverse 
karma,” I may become a maker of excellent karma for 
my own and others’ reaping in time to come ? 

Here mental healers score their completest philosophic 
victories, for it is only through a clear understanding of 
karma, or the law of sequence, that the “ golden mean ” 
can be reached, and a doctrine promulgated which, 
while steering entirely clear of the dangerous rocks 
named pessimism and fatalism, refuses to deny any 
demonstrable fact concerning heredity which science 
and experience may reveal. As there are distinctly two 
of every one of us — a higher and a lower self — we can 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


35 


safely say that we inherit on our lower side what cannot 
possibly reach us on our higher. It being useless to 
deny the temporal existence of weakness and errors on 
our earth-born side, and it being the height of folly to 
mourn over aught that is irrevocable, the true healer 
sets to work to direct the mental gaze of all who are in 
any way afflicted, from past to future, from dust to 
spirit, from carnal to celestial. 

We are at our highest and best incapable of sinning or 
desiring sin. Sickness and death — fruits of error — are 
only ephemeral vanities, real to that sense which per¬ 
ceives them, but unreal from the standpoint of the soul, 
which is above them. Sunrise and sunset are appear¬ 
ances on earth, but they are non-existent phenomena to 
that astronomical perception which transcends immeasur¬ 
ably the view-point of the terrestrial beholder. In like 
manner, all dust-born afflictions are of the old Adam 
only, and being peculiar to the transitory sense-nature 
of humanity, they do not , for they cannot , invade the 
sanctuary of our real being. This is not speculative 
idealism, but a practical foundation on which to raise a 
rock-based temple of abiding knowledge. 

Suggestion is impossible unless there be one who 
makes a suggestion and one who receives it, and as auto- 
suggestion is a very general term at present, all who use 
it intelligently are bound to practise according to prem¬ 
ises already laid down in this lesson. I speak to myself. 
I who speak am a spiritual entity ; the self spoken to is 
a subordinate who must be made to carry out the com¬ 
mands of the superior officer. 


36 


THE PEOPLE’S HANDBOOK 


In the true ovter versus disorder of human expression, 
the essential will is the general of the industrial army; 
intellect is captain, while the obedient soldiers are all 
the propensities included in the lower self. It is in the 
middle region of intellect that false beliefs are centred, 
and they must be driven from their entrenchment there, 
in order that there may be no further consequence of 
their presence in the flesh. Good will must act through 
right understanding. False belief is the cause of in¬ 
numerable ailments the existence of which is totally 
opposed to the desires of the proper will. 

We inherit beliefs, tendencies, liabilities, everything, 
in short, but disease itself. This inheritance is a fact, 
and as such it has to be met and dealt with scientifically. 
How shall we then set to work to eradicate tendencies 
which need eradication, and to conquer weaknesses over 
which we must rise victorious unless we are weakly sub¬ 
missive to an adverse fate which will crush us unless we 
conquer it? A distinguished London physician has told 
some ladies of our acquaintance that some children are 
“ demons in the womb,” and by so saying has greatly 
disturbed some sensitive people who are altogether too 
ready to accept pessimistic utterances without the neces¬ 
sary “ grain of salt.” The ancient tale of Jacob and 
Esau declares that twin brothers fought before their 
birth and were bitter antagonists through the greater 
part of their lives, though they at length became 
friends. 

We must not ignore the fact of disagreeable tenden¬ 
cies when engaged in scientific reasoning or philosophical 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIEtfCF 


3 1 


discussion, but the one altogether right way to effect¬ 
ually dispose of difficulties is (while admitting their 
transitory existence) to affirm bravely and persistently 
our own inherent power to overcome them. 

There are three great classifications of disorder: 
First, disorders arising from hereditary taint and weak¬ 
ness ; second, disorders due to our active follies in the 
present existence ;* third, disorders springing from weak 
and careless submission to the beliefs and conditions of 
people about us. If, in consequence of your own mis¬ 
takes in a previous life, or because of the follies of your 
parents or remote ancestors, you are beset with weak¬ 
nesses and burdens which threaten to overwhelm you, 
you should at once brace yourself for the occasion and, 
while acknowledging the fact of your immediate environ¬ 
ment, laugh in the face of obstacles, and tell your diffi¬ 
culties that you are here to vanquish them, not they to 
conquer you. If this attitude be taken toward all dis¬ 
tressful surroundings, the whole subject of karma and 
heredity ceases to terrify or dishearten you, because you 
are now in the victor’s instead of the slave’s position of 
thought. 

There can be no greater mistake than to oppress your¬ 
self with the burdensome thought that because “ such is 
my karma,” I must therefore bend my back to a constant 
burden and allow fresh troubles to be heaped upon me. 
From whatever side one is most disposed to view this 
most complicated subject, it is always necessary to de¬ 
clare that some real good is being worked out for your¬ 
self and others through the direct agency of the very 


38 


THE PEOPLE^ HANDBOOK 


conditions in which you are this moment placed ; but 
the outworking of this good is to be accomplished by 
heroic rising above these obstacles, never by weak sub¬ 
mission to them. 

If one member of a family has inherited a dipsomaniac 
and another a consumptive tendenc}", it is useless to tell 
the drunkard that he can conquer his weakness, but his 
consumptive sister must of necessity succumb to tuber¬ 
culosis. The intelligent Mental Scientist must say 
plainly to so afflicted a pair, “You can both conquer.” 
It would be a good exercise for one to treat the other. 
Let the brother suggest to his sister that her brims are 
strong and her entire breathing apparatus perfect, while 
she suggests to him that his will is quite sufficient to 
conquer the temptation which is still assailing him as a 
member of a family into which that particular sort of 
weakness has gained an entrance. 

We must forget, i. e., forego our connection witli the 
past and affirm our instant relation with omnipresent 
goodness so as to vanquish hereditary tendencies of 
downward grade. You are now able to do as you please 
is in itself a powerful and highly useful suggestion both 
for silent and oral usage. Sickness brought on by our 
own active indiscretions can be conquered in a precisely 
similar way, and it is becoming increasingly clear to all 
practical mental healers that the attitude to be taken 
toward all weaknesses is virtually the same. It helps 
many students to be told that we never treat diseases, 
but we speak to human beings and suggest to them their 
ability to live the best lives they wish to live henceforth. 


03? SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 39 

and as they set new causes in motion, new effects will of 
necessity follow. 

We find that everywhere the prevalent desire is to 
be in the fashion and to imitate others, but the vapid 
thought behind the idiotic saying, “ Oh, anything for'a 
quiet life,” is a most fertile source of manifold disasters. 
To be healthy in the present state of society one must 
be in many respects decidedly unfashionable,just as were 
the Jews of Europe, during the Middle Ages, who en¬ 
joyed remarkable freedom from plague in its most viru¬ 
lent forms when it mowed down anti-Semitic trucklers 
to base prevailing customs like chaff before a whirl¬ 
wind. 

It is absolutely essential to health that we should 
steer clear of all those silly practices and inane beliefs 
which cause even the school-boys of the present period 
to be characterized as “ bundles of nerves.” Neurotic 
distempers are the most prevalent of all classes of dis¬ 
eases to-day, and shattered nerves are almost entirely 
due to a pitiable lack of honorable self-assertion. Be 
yourself and forget your grandfather makes a good 
adage. “ Think not to say within yourselves, Wq have 
Abraham to our father.” Why not, seeing that Abra¬ 
ham was so excellent a man ? Because we have all one 
Father, and until we understand what it is to acknowl¬ 
edge practically the universal parenthood of Deity, we 
shall flounder about in the miry ditch of inherited and 
contracted disorders. 

Such diseases as are commonly attributable to outside 
influences which occasion accidents, etc., are seemingly 


40 


THE PEOPLE’S HANDBOOK 


in a position by themselves ; but even these do not baffle 
the teacher of mental therapeutics, for though it be an 
obvious fact that people slip, fall, and break their bones 
at present, therefore surgery is still required ; not only 
will mental treatment prevent and subdue inflammation 
and greatly accelerate recovery, but as physical falls are 
in a last analysis clearly traceable to mental unsteadi¬ 
ness, all education which tends to help people to a state 
where they will prove firmer, more self-reliant, perspicu¬ 
ous and individually stronger, cannot fail to save them 
from numberless so-called accidents otherwise unpre-. 
ventable. Mental Science can make no progress among 
people who are wedded to idols, or too lazy to do any 
thinking of their own. Palliative mental measures can 
generally be employed; pain can be relieved by the 
most rudimentary phases of mental treatment, but it will 
return unless the patient is educated to understand that 
his own thought in the future must be higher than in 
the past. 

It is surely meet for all intelligent people to reason 
thus with themselves. The same cause invariably pro¬ 
duces the same effect; therefore, if we continue think¬ 
ing as our forefathers thought, we shall perpetuate and 
propagate their limitations with attendant and conse¬ 
quent sufferings ; but if we change our rate of vibration, 
re-polarize ourselves inwardly and thence outwardly, we 
shall set a current of force moving in a new direction, 
and though always reaping as we sow, our reaping must 
be different from what it formerly was because the seed 
sown now is of a fresh variety. 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


41 


If it be claimed (as it often is) that climate and 
many other external influences induce disease, and that 
these agencies are be} r ond our control, we have only 
this answer to give: Climate will treat us differently 
when we take a new mental attitude as regards it. 
Many people to whom London fog in November had al¬ 
ways been a serious menace have, in consequence of 
their acceptance of the fundamental proposition of Men¬ 
tal Science, so changed their own susceptibility that 
they now thrive where they once languished. The 
same remark applies equally to heat, cold, rain, sur¬ 
rounding activities, noises of all descriptions, and the 
company in which one may be compelled to move. 

Change your attitude toward conditions and they are 
changed toward you. Then will come, in due course, 
yet higher changes for you, and you will eventually 
create your own environment through further under¬ 
standing of the Law. 


LESSON III 

Positivity and Negativity ; Self Control and Self Poise ; Truth 
and Holiness or Wholeness 


In this lesson we will endeavor to set at rest a ques¬ 
tion which has long perplexed many who have been 
adversely influenced by one-sided statements concerning 
positive and negative. Every magnet, as we well know, 
must have two poles — positive and negative. There¬ 
fore, as both are essential to the constitution of a mag¬ 
net, it would be manifestly absurd to call one good and 
the other evil. They are alike good, but their func¬ 
tions are radically different. By means of our negative 
pole we draw into ourselves whatever we absorb and 
eventually assimilate, until it becomes a portion of our 
mechanism ; by means of our positive pole we exercise 
jurisdiction or command over the forces of existence 
which are all around us. W'ere we altogether positive 
we should be so enclosed in a wall of contracted self¬ 
hood that nothing could approach us to hold any con¬ 
verse or communion with us; and were we altogether 
negative we should be such a bundle of ever-fluctuating 
impressions as to lack everything worthy to be named 
self-conscious individuality. Attraction and repulsion 

42 



OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


43 


are terms commonly employed in this connection, but 
in consequence of the disagreeable associations con¬ 
nected with the second word, some Mental Scientists 
have eliminated it from their vocabulary as a word of 
misleading and pernicious import. We confess to no 
liking for it, and considering the thought generally 
attached to it we can well wish it good riddance. Just 
as operator and subject (old mesmeric terms) are set 
aside by modern suggestionists in favor of the much 
better and far more expressive terms sender and receiver , 
we can well afford to dispense with attractive and re¬ 
pulsive, and substitute receptive and distributive. 

We are all properly pupil teachers, for we learn while 
we teach and teach while we learn. Influx and efflux 
are necessarily corollary and we must inspire and respire 
continually. To give and to receive are equally neces¬ 
sary and desirable, for in a final analysis of reception 
and donation we cannot continue to give unless we are 
perpetually receiving; neither can we continue to re¬ 
ceive unless we are constantly giving forth. There is 
nothing niggardly in a true view of life. There is 
absolutely no advantage accruing from stinginess or 
parsimony on any plane of life’s innumerable expres¬ 
sions, therefore we must overcome the false beliefs and 
weakening fears which have so long oppressed the race 
concerning fatigue, exhaustion, loss of vitality, etc., etc. 
It does many people immense good to meditate alone and 
earnestly upon the significance of “ twelve basketfuls of 
fragments ” collected after a large multitude had eaten 
to their full capacity, according to a delightful Gospel 


44 the people’s handbook 

story. Earth, air and sea contain illimitable wealth; 
nature is boundlessly opulent, and though it is wise to 
be economical, it is never right to be stingy and afraid. 
Economy of strength means consecration of energy. 
All force is good in itself, but good accrues to us per¬ 
ceptibly only to the extent that we use wisely such 
amounts or measures of force as are now at our disposal. 
On the one hand we are continually dependent, upon 
force external to ourselves; sunshine, air and soil are 
typical examples. On the other hand we are hourly 
under the necessity of acknowledging inherent capacity 
within ourselves which enables us to become harmoni¬ 
cally related with universal environment. 

There are two schools of philosophers now addressing 
the public, the one insisting that we must place depend¬ 
ence solely upon Divinity without, the other contend¬ 
ing that we should think of Divinity as exclusively 
within. These two half truths need cementing into 
unity, and until they are cemented we shall have no 
philosophic system which can adequately explain the 
facts of existence. The seeds buried in earth unfold 
from within and accrete from without; fruits and blos¬ 
soms are results of this dual action. Let each individ¬ 
ual contemplate an entity as a twofold being whose 
negative pole should always be turned inward or up¬ 
ward to receive, while the positive pole is turned down¬ 
ward or outward to impart. We are all living in a 
middle region; there are influences from above and 
from below continually besetting us. To those above 
we should stand as pupils, to those below we should act 





OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


45 


as masters. Right polarization is essential to holiness, 
wholeness, or health, which are three words of identical 
import. Hyper-sensitive people are unduly negative; 
stubborn and stupid people arc unduly positive. We 
must deliberately set to work to polarize ourselves ac¬ 
cording to our will, affirming with conviction, “ I am 
negative to that alone to which it is my will to be neg¬ 
ative.” Then take the opposite affirmative which is 
equally expressive, “ I am positive to all toward which 
it is my will to be positive.” These two asseverations, 
if faithfully persisted in, will prove of intense talismanic 
power. Knowing, as we do, how many highly nervous 
and delicately organized people find what they call 
their “ mediumship ” a burden to them, but knowing 
also that sensitiveness in even an extreme degree can be 
directed so as to prove a priceless blessing, we are will¬ 
ing to encourage its scientific exercise while protesting 
against its promiscuous abuse. 

The greatest drawback to success in self treatment 
for the vanquishment of unhealthy limitations is found 
in the deep-seated belief of multitudes that will carries 
with it no adequate or commensurate ability to carry its 
purpose into effect. How very often people are heard 
to say, “ I would if I could,” when the true statement 
is, “ I will and I can.” The former saying is a pitiful 
and most illogical, as well as a thoroughly depressing, 
confession of imaginary weakness. The latter is a 
strong, wise affirmation rooted in intelligence and cap¬ 
able of bringing forth the most desirable effects. People 
need incessant drilling on the genesis, nature and ability 


46 


THE PEOPLE'S HANDBOOK 


of their own will, and unless teaching is given in ac¬ 
cordance with the radical inculcations of Mental Science 
in this respect, all such expressions of self-government 
or self-control are windy utterances bereft of all logical 
consistency. I can only control myself to the extent 
that I perceive that I and myself are two; Jam I and 
it is mine. If I am superior to it, I may control it, but 
apart from a clear distinction between it and me, self- 
control and all kindred terms are practically meaning¬ 
less, and to a great many people they are meaningless 
just because a failure to discriminate between'the higher 
and lower planes of our humanity. Holiness, which is 
equivalent to wholeness, signifies symmetry, equilib¬ 
rium, or equipoise; thus the true synonym of holiness 
is harmony, and with this agaiif health is synonymous. 

It is difficult for some students of medical literature 
to reconcile apparent contradictions sucli as “ mortal 
minds ” in conjunction with the trite saying that there 
is but one mind in reality, even Divine Mind. “ Chang¬ 
ing intellectual state ” is a far better expression than 
“ mortal mind,” and one far more easily comprehended. 
Intellect occupies in all of us an intermediate realm be¬ 
tween the plane of intuition above and the realm of 
sense below. Our reason is amenable to influence from 
both sections of our spiritual anatomy, for it is clear to 
all thinkers that we can reason upon what is submitted 
to us intuitively and alsa sensuously. It is intellect 
which goes astray and needs curing or restoring to the 
righteous path. It is intellect also which needs train¬ 
ing or disciplining so that it may become submissive to 


OF SPJKITHAL SCIENCE 


47 


direction from above and capable of exercising authority 
over all below. We take it for granted that all our 
students wish to know truth and do right, but we can¬ 
not admit that so long as people are suffering from 
error they are walking in the way of rectitude. With 
wilful sin we have nothing to do in mental practice, as 
all questions exclusively pertaining to theology we 
leave outside our practice. 

Having settled the ground between ourselves and our 
students regarding the ground legitimately and neces¬ 
sarily covered in mental practice, we invariably seek to 
set all doubters straight as regards the power vested in 
themselves for conquering all such ailments as they can 
be brought to see are clearly results of erroneous judg¬ 
ments by no means synonymous with wilful sin. The 
Golden Rule must be obeyed on three planes before we 
can demonstrate healing power suggestively and sue - 
cessfully. The entire reading of the Rule is: Think, 
speak and act toward every neighbor precisely as you 
desire any neighbor to act, speak and think toward you. 
There can be no legitimate self-control so long as there 
is any lurking desire to control others, and it is at this 
special point that many good-hearted people need in¬ 
struction most. Every soul must find heaven for itself, 
and no one will ever find it so long as he is bound in 
slavery to the diction of a foreign will. “ Do as I tell 
you” is a despotic order which, whenever obeyed, 
weakens and impoverishes even the person who per¬ 
forms a right action from so mean a motive. A great 
deal that is called rebellion in children is little more 


48 


THE PEOPLE’S HANDBOOK 


than reasonable self-assertiveness, and it cannot be long 
before parents must be prepared to adopt entirely new 
tactics with their children or else witness parental au¬ 
thority vanish into naught. Whatever is right is rea¬ 
sonable. Foolish fanatical commands which owe their 
origin to arbitrary caprice or love of despotism can 
•never commend themselves to reason or sense of right 
in any one, consequently the most furious refusal to 
submit to a peremptory order the justice of which can¬ 
not be shown amounts to something entirely different 
from any species of sheer waywardness which might 
oppose a reasonable suggestion or request. Why should 
one soul seek to dominate another when all souls are 
potentially equal? If some are more highly educated 
or more perfectly unfolded than others, it is clear that 
the office and function of teacher is a lawful one, but 
the true teacher is never aggressive or harshly authori¬ 
tative, but calm, logical, demonstrative, and ever desir¬ 
ous of proving to the pupil the truth of whatever he 
may declare. We cannot be self-poised, self-regulated 
or self-governed until we are completely free from the 
tyranny of submission to outside force. To cooperate 
should be ever a delight, but to submit must always 
prove a weakness. The true mental healer states the 
great truth involved in the abrupt and seemingly inso¬ 
lent words, “I’m as good as you are any day,” in much 
pleasanter language, thus : “ You are as good as I am 
any day.” 

The two forms of this one idea are simply two aspects 
of the primal truth of human solidarity. Too many 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


49 


people fear to trust themselves or exercise any judg- 
ment of their own, while they readily take advice from 
others who are certainly in no way superior to them¬ 
selves. “ Dare to be a Daniel, Dare to stand alone, 
Dare to have a purpose true, And dare to make it 
known ” is one of the finest exhortations embodied in 
any literature. It is the daring to stand alone which is 
the key to all noble achievements in every conceivable 
line of occupation. All the distress occasioned by ab¬ 
normal psychic experiences is fully preventable as the 
lesson of self-control is learned and put in practice ; and 
in these days when all psychic questions are intensely to 
the fore, it is clearly incumbent upon all mental and 
moral healers to point out the path of safety as opposed 
to that of danger in pursuit of psychic knowledge. To 
the calm dispassionate logician there can be no sort of 
agreement between the idea of delightful and always 
welcome psychical experiences, such as intercourse or 
intercommunion between loving friends, and anything 
coercive, such as arbitrary control or dominating ob¬ 
session. Individualization of character and furthered 
strength of will cannot possibly shut one off from inter¬ 
course with one’s beloved friends whether in this world 
or any other; but it must certainly prove a panacea for 
those myriad mental ailments which are chronically 
associated with neurotic persons who are sensitive 
enough to be mediumistic but are not balanced enough 
to have their own say as to the sort of relation which 
shall subsist between themselves and unseen influences. 
The great need of polarization is never more strongly 


50 


THE PEOPLE’S HANDBOOK 


felt than in cases where undue nervous excitement or 
degeneracy accompanies the sensitive temperament. 
Mental healers can and do effect wondrous cures where 
harmonizing is most required, and so far as future ex¬ 
emption from old-time nervous ailments goes, there is 
nothing else that can possibly take the place of scienti¬ 
fic (not hypnotic) mental suggestion. 

As health cannot be conceived of apart from harmony 
and wholeness, it is always incorrect to single out any 
one element in human nature for special eulogy, and it 
is positively mischievous to teach that any ingredient 
in the entire human composition can ever be anything 
other than intrinsically good. Such phrases as “ bad 
temper,” “ill health” and many others in common 
vogue can never be employed by people who have at¬ 
tained to any large degree of mental insight, because 
they suggest radical misconceptions regarding the 
very essence of the universe. Badly tempered and out 
of. health are permissible sayings, because they express 
intelligible and not irrational ideas. Well-tempered 
mortar is a good expression, as temper is whatever mod¬ 
ulates. Where we are wisely tempered we are well- 
modulated individuals, and being such we are healthy, 
harmonious and happy. There is no use in beating 
around the bush and patronizing in a half-hearted way 
theories we cannot consistently endorse ; far better is it 
at all times to come out strongly in advocacy of our ex- 
tremest views and let our neighbors understand once for 
all that we employ a terminology of our own to express 
our sincere convictions. We find in ever-increasing 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


51 


measure the paramount necessity which now exists for 
employing a distinctive and thoroughly affirmative 
phraseology in mental treatment, no matter whether 
particular treatments are given silently or aloud. 

The old system of denying away diseases by negative 
formulas has been carried much too far; we should now 
be glad to see it entirely superseded. We cannot possi¬ 
bly help people into healthy or harmonious states by 
suggesting to them what is adverse, even though we are 
ostensibly denying the power or even the very existence 
of the enemy. If there (in reality) be no foe, why 
name the illusory demon ? If the real object in treat¬ 
ment is to establish a condition of concord, why give a 
thought to discord and suggest its presence by denying 
it? Single words • are often all-sufficient formulas. 
Strength, courage, peace and many other simple words 
are, in our experience, amply sufficient to suggest and 
thereby to induce the exact mental attitude which must 
be established prior to a subsequent ultimation of order 
in the flesh, and finally in our surroundings. 

Let all who wish to profit by concentrative and medi¬ 
tative exercises select a word or a brief expressive sen¬ 
tence and hold it steadily in thought until a feeling of 
repose or exhilaration, as the special case may demand, 
has resulted therefrom. If objective suggestion is a 
help, we are acting well within the lirftits of beneficial 
suggestive treatment. If we map out in any pleasing 
or artistic form the idea, we are seeking mentally to 
grasp and retain. A picture, a statue, a motto, or in¬ 
deed anything convenient for the purpose, may serve as 


52 


THE PEOPLE’S HANDBOOK 


an introductory aid to mental imaging, and so long as 
the image portrays nothing contrary to the idea sug¬ 
gested by the will, you have carte blanche to select your 
own images. A statue of the Belvedere Apollo is some¬ 
times used as an introduction to a lecture on anatomy 
and physiology, because that perfect Greek type of 
human symmetry represents the human frame in glor¬ 
ious natural perfection. Imperfection, except in a case 
of evolution from an incomplete to a ripened condition, 
is utterly pathological, and being so it must never be 
mapped out mentally or physically if it is our sincere 
desire to do practical work in the humane direction of 
establishing peace where war is now rampant, no matter 
whether our definite field of action embraces interna¬ 
tional arbitration or is confined to-the much narrower 
domain of a single human organism as a starting point. 

We would gladly demolish all ugly pictures and all 
hideous statues, and very gladly indeed would we burn 
up all hideous photographs and destroy all books and 
papers which contain almost nothing but harrowing ac¬ 
counts of misery and crime. No possible good is ever 
done by having a portrait of yourself at your worst to 
look at privately or exhibit among your friends; but a 
picture of you at your best may be a source of elevation 
to yourself and others. Paintings which show forth 
some of the visions of Dante while dreaming of an In¬ 
ferno should never be encouraged as mural decorations, 
but the beautiful Beatrice and many scenes from the 
same author’s entrancing visions of Paradise may be 
profitably selected to adorn the selectest home. 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


5B. 


There is no work so ethically remunerative and none 
so truly advantageous in an all-round sense as that of 
suggesting harmony by first establishing it in your own 
thought-sphere as a tangible reality and then compelling 
outward things to assume a like complexion. As to 
how this rightful mental imaging produces correct ex¬ 
ternal conditions ultimately may provoke much earnest 
questioning, and to the consideration of this most fertile 
and fascinating scheme we shall give special attention 
in the next lesson in the present series. Inward poise 
we must first establish, assured that outward harmony 
must perforce ensue. 


LESSON IV 

The Power of the Will 
Divine Realization in Maintaining Health 


Though volume after volume may be written con¬ 
cerning Will Power and its immeasurable potency, this 
subject is essentially inexhaustible because will and 
love are identical. We instinctively declare love to 
be the creative power throughout the universe, then 
when reason supplements instinct in our unfolding 
consciousness we begin to think out an intelligible 
definition of an axiomatic truth. Love organizes every¬ 
thing that is organized, and love and will are insepar¬ 
able. We cannot even imagine one as abiding without 
the other. Will power is love in action. Love is the 
source ; will is the radiation or emanation from that 
source, and, being its direct expression, must be of the 
same nature with it. 

It is absolutely necessary to the student’s progress in 
Mental Science or a t-rue psychology that the intellect 
should be completely delivered from those false beliefs 
concerning will which cause multitudes of honest 
though misguided people to struggle against their 
own wills, thereby rendering themselves wretchedly 

’ 54 



OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


55 


inefficient in nearly all directions. It is, if possible, even 
more important to protect children against those same 
errors which cause parents and teachers (who are often 
sadly ignorant) to endeavor to break the wills of the 
children whose education is entrusted to their charge. 
We hesitate not to loudly affirm that no one who is so 
misguided as to attempt to break a child’s will has 
developed even the most rudimentary qualifications for 
guarding and training youth. The stronger the will 
a person enjoys t$ie firmer and more resolute that per¬ 
son assured^ is. It, therefore, inevitably follows that 
strong-willed people cannot be so easily driven as the 
weak-willed; but though they cannot be forced blindly, 
they can be lovingly and intelligently brought to see 
the most excellent paths and to walk in them with the 
full consciousness of rectitude and freedom. 

It is continually asserted that every human being is 
in possession of two wills — one Divine, the other 
human. We take no radical objection to such a state¬ 
ment provided it is not followed by the absurdly pessi¬ 
mistic saying that of those two wills, one is good and 
the other evil. Such a declaration is totally unfounded, 
though, like all other fallacies, it undoubtedly originated 
with the falsification of some cardinal truth. The Eden 
allegory, or some similar story, is to be found in the 
sacred books of every clime and nation, and this univer¬ 
sally disseminated story does truly set forth in pictorial 
imagery the varied elements which enter into the con¬ 
stitution of every human being. The figurative tales of 
the Orient are all couched in poetry and symbolism, 


56 


THE PEOPLE*S HANDBOOK 


and were never taken literally except by people far 
removed in distance, habits of thought and ways of 
life from Orient scenes in which the narratives origi¬ 
nated. The serpent is the oldest symbol of matter, or 
the entire sensuous or outwardly objective plane of 
existence, therefore it inevitably figures very promi¬ 
nently in old mystical and occult writings. To “ take 
up the serpent” is to accomplish the Rosicrucians’ 
Magnum Opus , or work of transmutation, and if the 
serpent is to be uplifted by all initiates, it must neces¬ 
sarily be confronted by every candidate for hierophantic 
honors. 

In every one of us there are two wills, the higher of 
which is permanent, the lower transitory. It is in the 
highest or inmost of his being that man is one with 
God, i. e., of the same nature with the Infinite. Every 
human being is an embryo divinity even in his present 
seemingly low condition of terrestrial embodiment. All 
the greatest works accomplished by the seers of the 
Orient have been performed by power of the higher 
will acting through the prepared channel of illuminated 
understanding. It is essential to our subject to remem¬ 
ber that we act from the seat of our affections (will) 
through our understanding (intellect). 

Every human being seeks good, and good only. “ My 
soul is athirst for God, even for the living God. When 
shall I come to appear before the presence of God ” is 
the universal soul-cry of the race, but though the deep¬ 
est desire of every human being is for the one true liv¬ 
ing God, there is so much misapprehension in the realm 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


57 


of unfledged or fettered intellects that, though the 
primal love or root desire is identical in all, there is no 
approach to unanimity or concert of intellectual action 
until the outer mind, which is the medium through 
which the real entity acts, has become far enough un¬ 
folded and clarified to permit of the essential will 
making its way out into perfect exterior expression. 
44 Ephraim is wedded to idols ” is a very expressive 
definition of the average intellect. False beliefs or 
mental misconceptions do not eradicate our fundamental 
love and search for truth, but they serve as barriers 
between us and the acceptance or realization of the 
very good we inwardly desire. 

To confound will-power with obstinacy is to fall into 
a most egregious mistake, for there is no relationship 
whatever between the two. Another fallacy very 
widely entertained is to the effect that will is a com¬ 
bative or destructive force, consequently it is supposed 
that to be very strong willed one must prove highly 
belligerent or pugilistic, and upon the basis of that 
fallacy there have been upreared many foolish and 
iconoclastic systems of so-called healing in which dan¬ 
gerous denials instead of invigorating affirmations have 
formed the staple. There is nothing whatever warlike 
in genuine will , which is a strong, beneficent, pacific 
force of unlimited attractive energy. Will attracts to 
itself that which it woos and draws by persistent 
expectation. 

Will and faith are comrades, but will and strife are 
aliens. It is always a pitiful blunder to try and knock 


58 


THE PEOPLE'S HANDBOOK 


down obstacles, because whenever you oppose anything 
you waste your own strength and supply your adver¬ 
sary with your vitality as a weapon to use against you. 
Those who really know something of practical occultism 
are fully acquainted with the deep scientific lesson 
couched in the familiar Gospel words, “ Resist not 
evil.” We must, of course, complete the sentence and 
drink in the vital importance of “ Overcome evil with 
good” before we can successfully perform a work of 
healing, but onward and upward steps have to be 
taken one by one. 

The first step for most people is to disabuse their 
minds of the possessing fallacy that in order to be 
strongly wilful and, therefore, successfully operative in 
any line of work we elect to pursue, we must seek to 
batter down some formidable obstacle. Picture to your¬ 
selves a central microcosmic sun at the very centre of 
your own organism, either at the centre of the brain or 
at the solar plexus (the great ganglionic centre back of 
the abdomen) as you prefer; or, still better, picture to 
yourselves these two central luminaries electrically 
united and see one of them radiating its brilliance efflu- 
ently through the entire brain, and the other emitting 
light which circulates to the extremities of the hands 
and feet, and envelops the entire surface of the frame 
with a soft, luminous sheen of aura. Then further 
picture forth the radiant beams of this aura passing 
far beyond the confines of your personality till they 
connect with whatever you specially desire to be united 
with. This exercise is always intensely helpful and 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 59 

highly beneficial provided you resolve to thus unite 
yourself with what is pure, wise and holy, either on this 
planet or in some other sphere. 

Another very profitable exercise for those who en¬ 
gage in visualistic meditation is to see yourself sur¬ 
rounded with a perfect sheen of aura like unto a crystal 
mirror or a sea of glass* and in that bright environment 
of yourself behold the state or object you particularly 
desire to realize. 

We give a needed warning to those who make the 
mistake of thinking they have a right to will other 
people to do as they desire. Such a course is altogether 
unlawful, as it savors of a crafty endeavor to subjugate 
the will of another, and being contrary to the perfect 
law of liberty enslaves in the meshes of coercive psychic 
influences whoever undertakes to practise it. It is 
always true that we must grant to our neighbors the 
same amount of freedom we claim for ourselves, or we 
cannot officiate successfully as liberators of ourselves or 
of our brethren Avho are in bonds. 

Once having fully established the idea of Will as a 
magnet of illimitable ability and irrepressible activity, 
we shall be ready to consider practically the doctrine of 
spiritual conjunction. Almost all Spiritualists persist 
in speaking of guides, teachers and inspirers as “ con¬ 
trols,” and though we know there are many who use 
that term who are as much opposed to mental slavery as 
we are, we cannot justify the term as being expressive 
of anything like an ideal relation between the teacher 
and pupil, healer and patient, or sender and receiver of 


60 


THE PEOPLE^ HANDBOOK 


a mental message. All the objection to so-called hyp¬ 
notism arises out of a not unnatural fear of yielding to 
some one else’s control. And as there is a wide differ¬ 
ence between pure and simple suggestion and what is 
generally understood by hypnosis, we are glad to be as¬ 
sured that many eminent physicians in England, as well 
as in America, have taken ground in favor of simple 
suggestion and against what they call hypnotism. 

One of the tritest of sayings wherever mesmerism is 
broached is that to succeed in mesmeric experiments a 
strong-willed operator and a weak-willed subject are 
necessary, and every one who followed the career of 
widely advertised mind readers in America some years 
ago heard very much about Bishop and other sensitives 
being seriously injured nervously by submitting to the 
strain of psychic experiments which involved the yield¬ 
ing of a weaker to a stronger mentality. The practice 
of genuine mental therapeutics is diametrically opposed 
to all coerciveness, and though it be a fact that in prob¬ 
ably ninety-nine cases out of every hundred the healer 
has a more fully developed will than the invalid who 
applies for treatment, the entire trend of beneficent sug¬ 
gestion is toward emancipating and strengthening, never 
toward enslaving or coercing the will of the sufferer. 
Mental treatments, when fully adminstered, are directed 
toward the intellect in full accordance with the wills of 
the patient and healer who act in concert. 

Whenever you seek to obtain an increase of strength 
or happiness, or obtain deliverance from any kind of 
mental or physical distress, you are apt to allow the 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


61 


fallacy to dominate you that you cannot do the good and 
reasonable work you are wishful to accomplish. At this 
point the healer’s will, united with his understanding 
(which may be greater than your own), comes to your 
rescue, and you are assured by the powerful suggestive 
treatment given you that you can accomplish whatso¬ 
ever you will to do. I ivill accomplish that which I will 
to accomplish is an excellent model formula for self 
treatment. When you are treating others you merely 
change the pronoun in the sentence, substituting you or 
we for I. 

The very highest act of will is its consecration to the 
noblest mission possible, that of blessing all humanity. 
Just as soon as people everywhere are brought to under¬ 
stand that it is through force, of will working through 
expectation, burning as a steady, continuous, quenchless 
flame, that all desires can be fulfilled pacifically, wars 
will cease over all the earth. In the endeavor to heal 
it is always worse than futile to take up a resentful at¬ 
titude either toward disease or the causes which are sup¬ 
posed to bring about disorderly conditions. Health is 
possible only as we dwell in peace and unity. We can¬ 
not be concentrating our attention steadily on the ob¬ 
ject of our supreme desire, and at the same time taking 
troubled cognizance of the annoyances and humiliations 
which threaten to prevent the fulfilment of our desire. 
One path or the other must be trodden, and no real 
progress can be made so long as we halt between any 
two opinions. Once fix in your thought-centre the idea 
of your ideal, then concentrate steadily and exclusively 


62 


THE PEOPLE’S HANDBOOK 


upon reaching the goal you wilfully pursue, and because 
of that complete centralizing of thought and fixity of 
mental gaze, you will find yourself growing so strong 
inwardly and radiating so much spiritual and personal 
force that disturbances hitherto apparently insurmount¬ 
able will dissolve as ice melts under the torrid beams of 
a tropic sun. 

Will must never be confounded with aught that op¬ 
poses itself to the Divine influx which is our perpetual 
life. To realize this incessant influx is to attain to a 
state where fear of inherited taint and subsequent sin¬ 
fulness can no longer fetter us, because we live no 
longer in the past, but in the vital present. The will to 
be well, happy, prosperous and useful is normal, and be¬ 
longs to our true spiritual being, whereas all foolish and 
pernicious desires, which we must completely relinquish 
ere we can enter into a true realization of our ties with 
all that is Divine, pertain entirely to the unenlightened 
intellect, or “ mortal vision,” as it has often been termed 
by Christian Scientists. 

Many people invent a difficulty in the path of spirit¬ 
ual healing by starting with the false assumption that 
temporary conceits and vagaries of the intellect are cen¬ 
tred in the Will, when they have in reality no lodgment 
whatever there. A true exposition of the matter leads 
us to perceive that intellect can be either beclouded or 
enlightened, and as in every case it serves as a medium 
of communication between the plane of Will and the 
plane of Sense, whatever darkens the understanding is 
comparable to a solar eclipse when the sun itself is 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


63 


shining as brightly as though no dark object had come 
between its radiance and the earth. The real Will must 
be completely separated from its fictitious counterpart 
before we can give or receive true spiritual treatment, 
as all healing ministries must acknowledge cooperation 
of will versus competition of will. 

If a person appears to take delight in some injurious 
indulgence, he does not take true pleasure in anything 
injurious, he merely believes through ignorance of law 
that he will derive some benefit or real enjoyment 
through a channel which "entirely fails to connect witli 
any spring of health or fountain of happiness. Regard¬ 
less of whether your pupil-patient is yourself or another, 
boldly affirm that every human being really desires good 
only. Then proceed to treat yourself or the other thus: 
We all desire whatever makes for our best interest and 
naught besides; therefore, whatever fails to contribute 
to our true welfare is outside the pale of our real desires. 
We all love good and intend to harmonize with univer¬ 
sal order. We are henceforth free from all illusions of 
belief, and unite ourselves wilfully with that alone which 
makes for righteousness. 

We make no arbitrary rules for students to follow as 
to definite formulas to be employed, but Ave do declare 
that success in healing will always prove commensurate 
with a righteous view of human will and all pertaining 
to it. Humanity can only be impeded in its onward 
road to actualized nobility by the wretched heresies 
which present man to himself as an incarnate fiend in¬ 
stead of a bright archangel in process of evolution. We 


64 


THE PEOPLE’S HANDBOOK 


are all Divine at the very core or centre of our being, 
and the more forcibly we declare in favor of our royal 
birthright, the sooner shall we escape from the clutches 
of disease, poverty, vice and all that prevents our happy 
usefulness. Divine realization necessitates faith in the 
following tremendous statement: Every atom in our en¬ 
tire constitution is good, and it is our quenchless, un¬ 
alterable will that all atoms entering into our economy 
shall be so polarized that perfect harmony shall stand 
revealed. Divine life is our inmost; we receive life 
continually from a pure source, through a pure channel. 
Health is now our complete inheritance. Use such af¬ 
firmations persistently as breathing exercises and reap 
most blissful consequences. 


LESSON V 

The Power of the Will and Divine Realization in Main¬ 
taining Health 


Though almost every one believes to a large extent 
in the power of Will, there is frequently a seeming con¬ 
flict between the religious idea of obedience to Divine 
Will and the purely rationalistic conception of the su¬ 
premacy of the human will regardless of a superior 
Divine Will. These two ideas, however, are not mutu¬ 
ally exclusive or contradictory, though in order to under¬ 
stand their agreement we must at once clearly define 
what we mean by the terms employed. The essential 
will of all humanity can be justly spoken of as good, 
because it is reasonable and in full accord with general 
human progress. We cannot rationally conceive of a 
Supreme Being who wills the injury of any portion of 
the Creation, but we can entertain a truly exalted idea 
of the Deity when we endorse the fine affirmation of an 
apostle: “ This is the will of God, even your sanctifica¬ 
tion.” To sanctify means to make whole, therefore to 
heal, for by healing is properly signified that perfect 
development of the individual which leaves nothing to 
be desired in his entire condition. We may gladly 

65 



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THE PEOPLE^ HANDBOOK 


anticipate a time when there will be no sickness to cure, 
no crime to eradicate and no abject misery to relieve, 
but we can never think of a day when the work of edu¬ 
cation will have reached a final end. 

Now, all children are born into a state of self-love in 
which they appear regardless of others; they are neither 
friendly nor unfriendly to their neighbors, for they think 
only of themselves and their own wants. This natural 
condition must in due season be outgrown, and when 
we begin to outgrow it we are conscious of a struggle, 
or conflict, between two opposing forces in our own 
economy. The universal story of Eden must have had 
its symbolic origin in this very real human experience ; 
the serpent in us always urges upon us the supreme 
desirability of gratifying self regardless of neighbor, 
while the Divine voice, also within us, is continually 
urging us to seek the larger good of the social unit in 
preference to the smaller good of the personal unit. It 
is only while we are as yet unwise that we imagine 
these interests to be contradictory, for no sooner do we 
reach a point in our intellectual as well as moral educa¬ 
tion where we begin to see that neighbor includes self, 
though self does not include neighbor, than we perceive 
the working of one common good will in all and 
through all seeking to produce the best for all. The 
will to be well may be, but need not be, a purely selfish 
instinct; an individual may desire all that makes for 
his own welfare regardless of that of his neighbor, but 
he need not be thus regardless in order to secure his 
own welfare. 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


67 


No more forcible example can be given than the pre¬ 
vailing theory of infection. Most people dread con¬ 
tagious disorders, therefore they feel aggrieved when 
their neighbors, through foolish neglect of sanitary pre¬ 
cautions, allow themselves to become dangerously ill. 
No sensible person imagines that those who suffer from 
painful and serious ailments can enjoy their own sad 
condition; they can therefore have no possible interest 
in jeopardizing the health of the community, for were 
they in good health themselves, thereby capable of en¬ 
joying life, they could not spread disease among their 
neighbors. 

The same reasoning applies with equal force to all 
intellectual, moral and spiritual attainments ; the inter¬ 
est of all being clearly at stake in the mental, moral and 
spiritual elevation of each individual member of human 
society. There is a prevailing fallacy which needs to 
be forcibly corrected, namely, that in order to be well 
off ourselves we must to some extent swindle or impov¬ 
erish our neighbors. This canker-worm at the very root 
of business ethics causes one set of mistaken people to 
neglect their own advancement, fearing that did they 
promote it they would harm others, while it leads an¬ 
other set of the equally misguided to resort to rascality, 
because they believe there is no promotion for them 
without it. These two errors committed by two mor¬ 
ally-opposed classes of people are both mistakes of 
the intellect, neither proceeding from the will. Did the 
first-mentioned class see their way to personal success 
along a perfectly honest pathway, they would gladly 


68 


THE PEOPLE’S HANDBOOK 


reach the goal of success, and did the others see the 
same they would also travel along an honorable road. 

We plainly see when we pause to investigate the 
essential nature of human will that there is nothing in 
it radically opposed to Divine Will. The theological 
supposition that man’s will is evil while God’s Will is 
good has proceeded from an ignorant failure to discrim¬ 
inate between essential human will, which is permanent, 
and transitory human desires, which only evidence a 
transitory frame of mind. We all desire health, and 
what does perfect health mean but complete equipment 
for the full discharge of all our varied duties, public 
and private ? When we are perfectly well we are use¬ 
ful, good-natured, cheerful, intellectually brilliant, and 
in every way conducive to the well-being of all with 
whom we come in contact. 

We will now consider a typical philanthropist, one as 
benevolent as John Howard, for example. Such a man 
lives only to do good, his eye is single to the welfare of 
his neighbors, he is continually engaged in devising 
schemes for the improvement of their condition, and in 
order to carry out these benevolent designs he must 
have strength of mind and bodjr in large degree ; any 
attack of illness must in some degree incapacitate such 
a man from doing the large good work his kindly spirit 
is ever seeking to accomplish. Such a man cannot help 
being happy because he is making others happy, and as 
nothing so greatly conduces to health as a contented 
mind, coupled with a cheerful disposition, the genuine 
philanthropist is likely to enjoy far better health than 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


69 


the self-pampering, sensuous man or woman, who is 
always seeking personal security and physical gratifica¬ 
tion. Truly may it be said that we do not enjoy health 
because we are continually seeking health, but we be¬ 
come healthy because we so live that we cannot feel the 
reverse. 

No one who truly realizes the operation of Divine 
Will in his own will can separate or alienate himself 
from Omnipresent Divinity. Different ideas of God 
may be honestly entertained by various schools of 
thinkers, but the fundamental proposition which is that 
Good is supreme and universal must be held in common 
by all truly healthy, happy and useful people. We can¬ 
not be healthy and pessimistic at the same time, though 
we may enjoy health while holding to a fatalistic view 
of life, provided our fatalism is of a cheerful variety. 
The celebrated mottoes “ God reigns ” and “All’s right 
with the world ” may be employed to defend and set 
forth the doctrine of predestination, but it must be the 
predestination of Supreme Benevolence. 

We do not advocate fatalism, but we do insist on 
optimism, by which we mean a philosophy of life which 
can be expressed in the following sentence : We can get 
every blessing we desire , provided we set about getting it 
in the right way. The law of the universe is both im¬ 
mutable and beneficent, therefore it is absurd to seek 
to change its operation, but as that operation cannot be 
improved, and we need but to become familiar with it 
to reverence it supremely, our only wise course is to ac¬ 
quaint ourselves therewith, and be at peace. 


70 


THE PEOPLE’S HANDBOOK 


How shall we acquaint ourselves with universal order? 
is the greatest of questions. We can only learn it as 
the seers or prophets of old learned it, by communing 
with the Divine in the secret place of our own conscious 
being. “ Be still and know ” is a great precept, and 
by stillness is properly meant entire detachment from 
all ulterior objects of thought. There is ever a great 
mystery attaching to our unconscious relation with the 
spiritual universe. We are surrounded at all times not 
only by a crowd of witnesses but by a concourse of com¬ 
panions who are in the same inmost affection as our¬ 
selves. We need have no theoretical knowledge either 
of Spiritualism, Theosophy or Mental Science to be in 
the closest psychical communion with multitudes of 
spiritual beings because spiritual relationships depend 
almost entirely upon similarity of affection. Whatever 
you will, love or desire brings you, knowingly or un¬ 
knowingly to yourself, into intimate relation with many 
others who love, desire or will the same. Spiritual 
spheres and psychical associations are thus constituted 
and held in form ; so much so that whenever we deliber¬ 
ately embrace a new idea and cling to it with our affec¬ 
tions we become introduced into a new spiritual society 
whose membership includes some who are yet on earth 
and others who have passed beyond mortal vision. 

Many people complain of bad luck or chronic misfor¬ 
tune ; they assure their friends that misfortune contin¬ 
ually pursues them, while they are simply rendering 
their own unfortunate condition chronic by persistently 
adhering to the belief that it is so. Before we can 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


71 


emancipate ourselves from the dominion of the old 
mythological Fates and Furies we must acknowledge 
our primary relation with the absolutely Divine, no 
matter how many secondary relations we may have with 
mortal conditions. We have all two origins, one spirit¬ 
ual, the other carnal, and the latter must be subdued to 
the former. We have partaken of the peculiarities of 
our ancestors, we have been influenced by prenatal dis¬ 
turbances and by postnatal environments of all sorts; 
these have formed our coats of skin which we wear in 
the external world both visibly and invisibly, for it is a 
skin of several layers’ thickness. But this skin is no 
part of our immortal nature which we are constantly de¬ 
riving from the Divine Being whose life is communi¬ 
cated to us by incessant influx. We can only realize 
our relation to the Divine as we study the order of our 
breathing. All venerated scriptures declare that God 
breathes into man the breath of life, thereby constituting 
him a living soul. Breathing is a continuous process; 
it must be kept up moment by moment or we should die. 
Herein we trace an exact correspondence between the 
life of the soul and the animation of the body. 

People, continually strike against the rock of Heredity 
because they see no farther back than Adam ; not know¬ 
ing of their Divine inheritance, they think it necessary 
to fulfil in themselves all the foibles of their grand¬ 
parents. Others, again, are committed to a false view of 
astrology, for, while not understanding the higher view 
of interstellar science, they accept the morbid conclu¬ 
sions of mediaeval astrologers without looking behind 


72 


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those vagaries to the far loftier astrological science of 
remoter antiquity. 

We must now consider the genesis of our desires. 
We desire what we desire because we are what we are, 
and we seek to express what we seek to express because 
we contain what we contain. You can desire to exer¬ 
cise a faculty or to employ a talent even though that 
talent be ever so deeply buried within you, but if it be 
not involved in your constitution you cannot feel its 
pulsation within you. A child may cry for the moon, 
and thereby give evidence of two distinct desires, both 
of which can be gratified; the lowest of these is simply 
an infant’s wish for a bright, glistening plaything, the 
second and deeper desire is an astronomical inquiry 
which can soon be taken advantage of as a basis for 
astronomical studies. Were there no possibilities within 
us for finding things out we should have no desire to 
find them out. To be healthy is to be harmonious with 
one’s environment, whatever that environment may be; 
we can therefore enjoy health on a comparatively low 
plane until we are awakened to something higher; then 
we become dissatisfied with what formerly contented us, 
and precisely at this point we are apt to get ill. 

Now we know that we desire something higher than 
we have yet attained; we cannot go back to the old 
condition and we cannot be happy where we now are 
because we are being urged forward by a push from be¬ 
hind and a pull from before. Let us seek to adjust our¬ 
selves to our new requirements, and if we are wise we 
shall welcome the transitory upheaval which marks our 


OF SPIRITUAL SICENCE 


73 

passage from an outgrown state to one we have not yet 
grown into. Let us make sure of our will; let us retire 
into a silent retreat whenever practicable and question 
our own inmost aspirations, seeking to discover exactly 
what it is we really want. We must now be very 
cautious lest we be entangled in the meshes of other 
people’s opinions, which are sure to be conflicting, and 
if followed by us will inevitably lead us astray. Every 
soul in a period of crisis must hear the Divine voice for 
itself, no one can hear it for another, though one may 
help to remove barriers which prevent another from 
hearing that voice for himself. Here comes in the 
place of mental healing free from all dictatorial pre¬ 
sumption. The will outlie patient must work with the 
will of the healer as the will of a pupil who wills to 
learn harmonizes completely with the will of a teacher 
who wills to teach. 

Suppose I give you a treatment when you are in a 
quandary; if I treat you scientifically I address you 
about as follows : “ My dear friend, listen to me. Your 
essential will is good; you truly desire only what is 
best; you wish to do good and get good; you desire to 
see the right way plainly, and, seeing it, to walk therein. 
I now affirm on your behalf that you do see your way 
plainly; that all-sufficient light now breaks in upon 
your understanding. You can now do exactly what is 
best for you to do now. The next step is already plain 
before you, and all successive steps which you need to 
take will be made plain one by one as occasion for tak¬ 
ing them arrives.” When your treatment has proved 


74 THE people’s handbook 

successful you leave the one most benefited by it in so 
tranquil a mental frame that he now clearly sees what it 
is best for him to immediately do; he feels freer by far 
than before you treated him ; his own sense of individual 
freedom has been heightened ; his dependence on Omni¬ 
present Divine aid deepened; you have been to him as 
a gate-opening angel, for your instrumentality has 
caused unseen fetters to fall from spiritual limbs. You 
have not endowed an eagle with clear sight or with 
powerful wings, but } t ou have broken the bars of an 
eagle’s cage, and the now freed bird can expand its pin¬ 
ions and turn its uninterrupted gaze toward the Sun of 
Righteousness, which is always shining with healing in 
its beams. You will not always require the services of 
a spiritual janitor; you may henceforward dispense with 
them yourself, and become a janitor unto others who are 
yet in mental prison houses. 

As your own will increases in conscious strength and 
freedom you become increasingly amiable and easy to 
get along with, for, though firm, you are sweet, and 
though very decided when conviction is at stake, you 
are very pliable in matters of no moral importance. 
Strong-willed, free-willed people are never unreasonable 
or capricious though they have well-made-up minds of 
their own, for they rejoice in their neighbor’s liberty as 
much as in their own. We must redeem the word 
wilfulness. A wilful child is a very loving child and 
usually grows up, when not irrationally thwarted, into 
a singularly capable man or woman. One great secret 
of our frequent failures to accomplish our own lawful 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 75 

desires is our mean attempt to force other people to 
yield to our caprices while we bitterly resent all the 
efforts they may make to compel us to yield to theirs. 

Free-will is a large word capable of no small applica¬ 
tion. If I wish to enslave another I conjoin myself 
with a slave’s heaven, which is also a society of tyrants, 
for every slave wishes to tyrannize, and every tyrant is 
the slave of some other tyrant. Never cringe and never 
boss if you would be free yourself, for he who bosses 
will be bossed and he who cringes will be held in per¬ 
petual serfdom. When we have come to realize that 
we have only one Master — even the Supreme Spirit of 
Goodness — and this Divine Governor rules from within 
us, not from without, we shall not stumble any longer 
regarding a true definition of our own higher self. 
There is a Divine independence which is perfectly in 
accord with right dependence and mutual interdepend¬ 
ence, for we are all brethren, and no brother can be his 
brother’s superior or inferior in a last analysis of rank. 
Some members of the family may be senior and others 
junior, but they are all of one blood. 

Will is a bloody thing, the flesh of which is the in¬ 
tellect; we must first have pure blood, then sound flesh 
and, finally, beautiful skin. So must we first have a 
clear conception of good-will, then a right understand¬ 
ing how to carry good-will into effect, and, finally, we 
shall attain unto the consummate fruit of our desires 
made manifest in a perfectly healthy organism and a 
perfectly satisfactory condition of surrounding affairs. 
The power of the will is a secret power; it is always 


76 the people’s handbook 

acquired b}^ occult force which works in and through 
all our behavior. The words of a truly strong-willed 
individual are always powerful to accomplish great re¬ 
sults ; not one of them is ever spoken in vain. 

You may lay the foundation of a large, eminently 
successful business concern by selling a single news¬ 
paper to a chance customer in exactly the right way. 
It may be your deepest desire, so far as worldly affairs 
are concerned, to become the head of a great publishing 
house which will dispense far and wide the noblest and 
most instructive literature. You have no capital yet, 
but you are quite sure within yourself that the time is 
not distant when you will have abundance. You know 
you are qualified to conduct a large, benevolent busi¬ 
ness successfully, but you do not yet see how you are to 
realize your desires. At this particular moment all you 
need to do may be to sell a single copy of Science Sift¬ 
ings for a penny to the first person who asks you for one. 
That is quite enough for a beginning if you are in the 
right mental frame and your expectation is united witli 
your will; you are now sowing a tiny seed which has 
within it the potencies of a gigantic tree. A man or 
woman who believes in small things and unimportant 
details is a very foolish and Godless individual, God¬ 
forsaken because God-forsaking. Such a small human 
insect should take a walk into the country on the first 
half-holiday and examine a non-human insect, then hav¬ 
ing discovered that the Infinite Intelligence working 
through all Nature has lavished as much symmetry 
and beauty upon an infinitesimal creature as upon an 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


77 


elephant, he should go back to his small details of petty 
business and pronounce them immense possibilities for 
displaying the highest skill and for achieving the most 
magnificent purposes. 

Always compel your expectations to keep step as a 
second horse in harness with your decided will. All 
doubt is diabolical; you can never achieve greatness 
while you harbor a single doubt. Great men who have 
been called sceptics have been simply inquirers who 
were unsatisfied with the narrow views of the universe 
which had been presented to them in childhood. Scien¬ 
tific scepticism is merely a confession of relative igno¬ 
rance while engaged in quest of absolute knowledge. 
In all times of doubt and threatened despondency make 
the following affirmations: My will is completely at 
one with the entire good-will of the universe. I desire 
only what it is best for me to obtain, and I have perfect 
faith that I shall obtain this in due season, and that sea¬ 
son is immediately I am qualified to fulfil my part 
nobly. I rejoice in the freedom of all my neighbors as 
truly as in my own. I pledge myself to extend to all 
others the same measure of liberty I desire extended to 
myself. Seeing that my will is in harmony with the 
Divine Will, which is omnipotent, I exclaim, “ May the 
Divine Will he done in me through the agency of my will , 
which is God's human executive .” 

Let such an attitude as the foregoing be persistently 
maintained, health of mind and body will ensue because 
it must. When we need to do something for the bene¬ 
fit of health we shall see exactly what to do and feel a 


78 


THE PEOPLE’S HANDBOOK 


distinct disposition to do it. All matters pertaining to 
food, raiment and shelter, as well as all needful advice 
concerning business and family affairs, will flow into 
our receptive, understanding by means of an intuitive 
gateway. 

It is a particularly good practice to set apart a certain 
brief space each day at a convenient time for with¬ 
drawal into privacy for the express purpose of receiving 
counsel from within, or if it be difficult in a very busy 
life to do this by day, before falling asleep at night let 
us always make the affirmation that during peaceful 
sleep we shall receive such interior enlightment as will 
cause us to rise in the morning fully equipped, morally, 
mentally and physically, for our next day’s undertak¬ 
ings. During sleep, even when we sleep dreamlessly, 
we can receive the deepest spiritual illumination. 


LESSON VI 

Hypnotism, Sleep, Rest and Repose as Healing Agents 


As all our students are doubtless well aware that 
though there is but one meaning properly attaching to 
the word Hypnotism, which is derived from the Greek 
Hypnos , meaning sleep, the popular idea of both Mes¬ 
meric and Hypnotic treatment, which are considered 
virtually the same, is entirely at variance with that full 
assertion of individual will which these lessons per¬ 
sistently advocate. 

The literature of mesmerism is so copious and easily 
accessible that all who desire to do so can easily avail 
themselves of all the most important facts concerning 
Mesmer and his wonderful work performed in Europe 
a full century ago. Since his time multitudes of fol¬ 
lowers who have more or less closely adhered to his 
teachings have deluged the world with real or pretended 
exhibitions of so-called mesmeric power. Mesmer him¬ 
self was undoubtedly a good and learned man, though 
his practice was by no means free from mistakes and 
absurdities; the chief drawback to his complete success 
as a magnetizer for the healing of disease consisted in 

79 



80 


THE PEOPLE S HANDBOOK 


his unwise method of connecting his patients magneti¬ 
cally, thereby running the risk of the transmission of 
disorder from one organism to another. 

Deleuze, an eminent Frenchman, in his fine work, 
“Animal Magnetism,” published in 1825, carried the 
theory of Mesmer to a safer and completer issue; but 
even he failed to rid the central mesmeric idea of those 
unnecessary accretions which have always hampered the 
beneficent employment of animal magnetism as a thera¬ 
peutic agent. The well-known decision of a committee 
of French Academicians many years later than 1825, 
which was to the effect that animal magnetism was a 
non-existent quantity, the cures attributed to it being 
properly referable to the exercise of imagination both on 
the part of physician and patient, did much to pave the 
way for the doctrine and practice of the celebrated 
Englishman, Doctor Braid, of Manchester, who em¬ 
ployed the word hypnotism to cover all the ground 
formerly traversed by mesmerists or animal mag- 
netists. 

During the past twenty years the popular interest in 
mesmerism, so-called, has steadily waned, while the 
interest in mental modes of treatment has wonderfully 
increased. There has, however, been a wide division 
among mental or suggestive practitioners, one party 
drifting into the abstract idealism known as Christian 
Science, another party verging toward Agnosticism and 
even Materialism in, the practice of professed hypno¬ 
tism, a third party endeavoring to take a wise middle 
course between the two extremes, gladly embracing the 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


81 


good in all systems of practice, but refusing to be 
bound in the trammels of any sect. 

As the result of large experience with professors of 
various schools of mental and magnetic practice, the 
author of these lessons can safely affirm that much that 
passes under the name of hypnotism is pure and simple 
Mental Suggestion, in no way subversive of the indi¬ 
vidual liberty of the person who voluntarily yields to 
such suggestion, while, on the other hand, many at¬ 
tempts are made to compel submission to an operator’s 
will on the part of unscrupulous practitioners. Let it 
once for all be understood that no amount of raving 
against hypnotism and its dangers, like that indulged 
in by the foolish among Christian Scientists and Theos- 
ophists, can possibly protect the weak and unwary 
against the machinations of those who seek to mis¬ 
employ hypnotic ability. The only safeguard of an 
individual' is that individual’s own mental and moral 
superiority to any adverse influence with which he may 
be visibly or invisibly brought in contact. 

There is a phase of hypnotism, speaking technically, 
which is an essential part of all proper mental treat¬ 
ment. Neurotic disorders always induce sleeplessness, 
and when insomnia has gone very far it borders closely 
on insanity, therefore it is highly necessary that a 
mental healer should know how to induce sleep in a 
sleepless patient. All opiates and anodynes are de¬ 
cidedly pernicious in their ultimate effect on the con¬ 
stitution, especially if their use be long continued, and 
it is a well-known fact that when sleeplessness becomes 


82 


THE PEOPLE’S HANDBOOK 


chronic the dose of chloral or opium has to be fre¬ 
quently increased, or it produces no result whatever. 
At this distracting point in the history of a victim of 
aggravated insomnia the strong, well-balanced mental 
healer can step in with the power of suggestion to 
entirely overcome these dangerous and distressing symp¬ 
toms, and, in order to do what needs to be done, this 
mental healer must have a clear conception of the true 
place of the will in suggestive practice. 

We all know that a case such as the one instanced 
desires sleep, but believes it impossible to obtain it. 
All confidence in material medicines has been lost, 
because they have proved thoroughly ineffective, there¬ 
fore the coast is clear for the work of the mental healer, 
who approaches the patient with an entirely new kind 
of remedy. 

The first great essential is that healer and patient 
should make each other’s friendly acquaintance. The 
healer, to be such in reality, must inspire confidence 
and communicate a sense of repose which only a repose¬ 
ful person can do. Sometimes on the occasion of a 
first treatment it is desirable for the healer to take both 
of the patient’s hands in his own, look steadily into the 
patient’s eyes and clearly articulate the words in a firm, 
calm voice, “ You will sleep perfectly to-night .” This 
simple sentence can be repeated a number of times in 
succession, the voice of the speaker gradually lapsing 
into silence, when the treatment can be still continued 
without audible expression. 

Whenever possible, it is highly desirable to give this 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


83 


treatment just before the patient retires for the night, 
or, when that is not practicable, during the treatment, 
the hour for retiring should be mentioned, the sugges¬ 
tive healer saying, for example, 44 You fall asleep to¬ 
night at eleven; you sleep soundly until seven.” Of 
course, an earlier or later hour for retiring or rising can 
be substituted for eleven and seven at the wish or dis¬ 
cretion of both parties concerned, but a wise limit of 
time for a night’s rest is always eight hours, though ten 
or even twelve hours’ profound slumber is none too 
much for one who has been subjected to the exhausting 
effects of long-continued insomnia. 

Surely every intelligent person can see that such 
sleep-inducing treatment as is here advocated cannot 
possibly be other than in full accord with the will of the 
person treated as well as with the will of whoever gives 
the treatment. The case stands thus: You wish to 
sleep, but something has kept you from sleeping; the 
healer’s intention is to assist you to enjoy the sleep you 
both want and need, and in order to do so he must con¬ 
quer the obstacle or banish the unseen intruder which 
has been preventing your repose. 

When you apply for mental treatment you should 
know exactly what you desire and you should communi¬ 
cate this desire to the healer whom you have called in 
and request him or her to treat you for the accomplish¬ 
ment of such desire. You know you need sleep; you 
have been trying in vain to obtain it in useless and un¬ 
desirable ways ; you have now made up your mind to 
make trial of a new and highly superior method which 


84 


THE PEOPLE’S HANDBOOK 


the mental healer understands and practises. Seeing 
that you are both agreed concerning the end in view, 
you do not place yourself in any attitude of slavish sub¬ 
mission to another’s will. On the contrary, you have 
engaged a friend to cooperate powerfully with you to 
fulfil your own legitimate desire, which is for quiet rest, 
a condition always necessary to health of mind and 
body. 

Whoever gives a treatment for sleep to himself or to 
another must use the word sleep frequently during af¬ 
firmation. The constant use of a word which is the dis¬ 
tinct embodiment of some definite idea cannot fail to in¬ 
duce the result suggested by that word, provided the 
word is spoken faithfully and frequently. Mere formu¬ 
lated sentences without life or deep feeling in them pro¬ 
duce very small results ; the same words when employed 
by one who feels them intensely will produce conse¬ 
quences of great magnitude. In this fact we find re¬ 
vealed something of the meaning of the old phrase, “the 
Master’s word,” which can only be spoken by a master, 
for were the same syllables uttered by a servant only a 
servant’s word would result. The true hierophant or 
adept is one who has learned to speak whatever word he 
utters with the full assurance of faith that it will accom¬ 
plish the result for which it is intended. 

We often hear about the strong will of the operator 
and the weak will of the subject; but we need not draw 
therefrom the false, though common, inference that a 
weak-willed person must be brought under control of 
the stronger-willed individual in order to receive benefit. 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


85 


Weak wills need strengthening, and they can be most 
effectively strengthened by friendly contact with all 
wiser and stronger wills. It is therefore quite true that 
a successful healer possesses a very much more fully de¬ 
veloped will than that of the weak-willed patient. The 
first impulse of the weaker may be to yield blindly to 
the strong one, as weak-willed people are very irresolute 
and in no condition to shoulder heavy responsibilities 
themselves. 

When the healer is a conscientious, upright person, 
and only such can be a genuine healer, no possible harm 
can result should the patient fall into a magnetic trance 
and experience for the time being what is known as 
artificial somnambulism in place of ordinary sleep. 
This magnetically-induced repose will soon be followed 
by refreshing rest of the ordinary description, and 
though we do not advise mental practitioners to set to 
work to induce artificial slumber, when it spontaneously 
follows upon their suggestions there is no cause what¬ 
ever for annoyance or alarm. 

When the patient has fallen asleep suggestions should 
be steadily continued until the healer feels within him¬ 
self that the treatment already given suffices for the 
present. When you feel that you have said all that you 
have to say do not attempt to continue the treatment 
longer, for all subsequent statements will grow weaker, 
and might even counteract, at least to some extent, the 
good accomplished by your earlier and stronger state¬ 
ments. 

We all know that sleep follows naturally whenever it 


86 


THE PEOPLE’S HANDBOOK 


is needed, provided we are not in an anxious or care¬ 
worn mental frame. The wise healer, seeking to de¬ 
liver a patient from the bondage of insomnia, will often 
say nothing whatever about sleep during his suggestive 
treatment, but will confine his statements to mention of 
peace of mind, mental tranquillity, inward repose, and 
freedom from care or anxious solicitude concerning busi¬ 
ness or family affairs. We must clearly understand that 
it is always right to begin at the causative end when 
giving mental treatment. The usual cause of sleepless¬ 
ness is worry, which is the antithesis of mental repose, 
therefore the treatment must be given for mental repose. 
The word worry should not be brought into the sugges¬ 
tive formulas, because to make mention of the name of 
a disease constitutes oftentimes an adverse suggestion 
which is soon taken up by a sensitive patient and trans¬ 
lated into an auto-suggestion which serves to engrain 
the thought of disorder more fully in the consciousness 
of the sufferer. 

We all have some idea of electro-magnetic action in 
the human system. The successful electro-magnetic 
physician is always one whose harmonizing instrumen¬ 
tality serves to equalize the electric and magnetic cur¬ 
rents of force in the human body, which is a great 
storage battery for universal energy. Direct mental 
suggestion aims at successfully accomplishing by exclu¬ 
sively mental processes precisely what the electro-mag- 
netist seeks to bring about with or through the aid of 
some external appliances. 

We confess to no sympathy'with any attempt to 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


87 


reduce the hours of natural sleep to a minimum by 
artificial processes, though, as in the case of the great 
Napoleon Buonaparte, three or four hours of unusually 
profound slumber will accomplish far more for the resto¬ 
ration of mental and physical energy than a very much 
longer time spent in light or fitful repose. Persons of 
highly nervous temperament when in good health are 
very sound sleepers ; being naturally intense, they do 
everything intensely, including sleeping. Such per¬ 
sons, although often seemingly delicate or fragile in 
personal build, can do an amazing amount of mental 
work without fatigue; they also recuperate very readily 
after hard manual exertion, provided they are allowed 
to sleep peacefully until they awake spontaneously, 
and they can usually sleep soundly in any place, quiet 
or noisy, where they can feel mentally at rest. 

Sleep must, however, be regarded as intended by nat¬ 
ure for vastly higher purposes than merely recuperative 
ones. During sleep, in these days as in olden times, 
we often hold communion with spiritual beings from 
whom we receive an immense amount of that interior 
information which comes to us through no external 
avenues. We all live two lives at once, an outer and 
an inner life. During sleep we are in the subjective or 
sub-conscious condition which is our psychical state of 
life; then when we awake we return to the objective or 
superficial plane of consciousness where we often employ 
the results of information received while in the psychic 
condition. Did our recollective faculty serve us so far 
as to enable us to remember in the one state all that we 


88 


THE PEOPLE’S HANDBOOK 


experience in the other we should be in the possession 
of continuous, unbroken consciousness. We are never 
really unconscious during sleep, though we may be other¬ 
wise and elsewhere conscious than when we are awake. 

A bridge can be built mentally between these two 
states of consciousness, so that when we desire to recol¬ 
lect in our waking hours what we have gained during 
sleep we can do so, provided we accustom ourselves to 
make positive affirmations before falling asleep that we 
shall remember after we have awakened all that can 
prove of value to us during the ensuing day. Prophetic 
dreams and correct visions of distant persons, places and 
objects, which not infrequently come to sensitive people 
while asleep, prove that our psychic faculty, which is 
usually at rest during the day, is wide awake and active 
during the night; but in cases where highly medium- 
istic people, clairvoyants, clairaudients, psychometers 
and others see visions and hear voices during the day¬ 
time, there is in their cases an unusually close bond of 
sympathy between the two planes of consciousness. 

The so-called “ Rest Cure,” with which the name of 
Dr. Weir Mitchell, of Philadelphia, has long been 
prominently associated, is, in our judgment, largely a 
mistake, because rest cannot be obtained in uninterest¬ 
ing idleness. It is often necessary that nervously-over- 
wrought patients should be for a time secluded from all 
ordinary cares and duties, while all responsibility is re¬ 
moved from their shoulders; but there can be no true 
rest where the mind is fidgety and a sense of irksome 
physical restraint makes the invalid feel like a prisoner. 
L.oF C. 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


89 


One day a month in bed has been found a great boon to 
many a heavily-taxed housekeeper, and many a business 
man who does not rise till late on Sunday afternoon 
and attends church or lecture hall only in the evening 
finds the weekly Sabbath a veritable day of rest, re¬ 
freshing alike to mind and body. 

It is quite impossible to further define rest as a heal¬ 
ing agent than to declare it to be complete repose from 
care and anxiety, for inducing which suggestive treat¬ 
ment is often imperatively needed. We all have many 
duties to perform which we cannot honorably escape. 
We can, however, so completely change our mental 
attitude to those duties that we can call a duty a de¬ 
light, converting into a privilege what was aforetime a 
burden heavy to be borne. Very much more depends 
upon the mental attitude we take toward the work we 
have to do than upon the nature of the work itself. 
We may enjoy perfect repose while walking, talking, 
writing, singing, or doing any kind of .mental or manual 
work, provided we determine to look upon our employ¬ 
ment as an agreeable means of employing energ}^, not 
as a tiresome way of wasting it. They who truly hus¬ 
band their energies are they who do whatever comes in 
their way to do with cheerful alacrity, taking their 
occupations one by one, doing each piece of work in 
turn as perfectly as possible without troubling over 
what will need to be done next. 

When you retire at night refuse to allow the anxieties 
of r your business to. affect you in any measure, but if 
you have business perplexities awaiting solution on the 


90 


THE PEOPLE’S HANDBOOK 


morrow, quietly and steadily affirm that you will receive, 
while you are sleeping, all necessary guidance by way 
of enlightenment to enable you to so conduct your 
affairs that the greatest possible good to all parties in¬ 
terested 'will result from your behavior. When you 
have accustomed yourself to the use of so wise a night¬ 
cap you will always awake in the morning with a clear 
head, refreshed limbs, a tranquil spirit and a general 
ability to overcome difficulties instead of being over¬ 
come by them. The same people might have called 
upon you, the same propositions might have been made 
to you during the ensuing day had you suffered from 
broken rest, troublous dreams and hysterical nightmare 
the night before ; but the loss of sleep and general men¬ 
tal perturbation would have quite unfitted you to deal 
sagaciously with the people you encountered or to act 
wisely in connection with the plans submitted for your 
consideration. 

We do not alwaj^s get precise directions from the 
spiritual world how to aet in mundane matters, but 
when we are in the enjoyment of high and, therefore, 
elevating spiritual conjunctions, we become so tranquil 
and so lucid that our own judgment is unbeclouded; in 
that way we are truly helped to help ourselves. The 
accomplished seer can at anytime go. into mental pri¬ 
vacy and fall asleep at will. 

We know of no better advice to give to anxious and 
perplexed people than the following: Retire at the 
earliest opportunity to some sequestered place and sug¬ 
gest to yourself that you will enjoy a short period of 


OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 


91 


profound repose during which you will receive exactly 
the enlightenment you require to enable you to pass 
through your present difficulty to a higher state beyond. 
If you cannot readily feel the force of your own sug¬ 
gestion, because of your present mental turbulence, you 
are in a condition where you greatly need the services 
of a tranquil, judicious friend who can make the needed 
suggestions on your behalf, inviting you to make them 
for yourself after they have been made for you by an¬ 
other. 

Whoever wishes to induce repose in another must 
have brought himself by that time into a state where he 
is altogether superior to disturbance resulting from 
common sources of annoyance. You cannot reasonably 
expect to enjoy real spiritual enlightenment until you* 
have first conquered all undue anxiety concerning mate¬ 
rial affairs. The highest use of sleep, no matter of 
what variety or how induced, is to liberate the spirit 
from oppressive thraldom to the senses. 

The conscientious professor of hypnotism — who may 
be a good physician, like the eminent Doctor Gregory, 
of Edinburgh, whose work on animal magnetism is still 
a standard medical classic, though he calls his work by 
a doubtful name — is certainly rendering valuable and 
beneficent service to humanity. The use of hypnotic 
suggestion in connection with surgery and dentistry can 
be most fully justified, because while anaesthetics are 
never unattended with danger, and usually serve only 
to drug a sensitive person into seeming unconsciousness, 
intelligent suggestions made by wise and kindly men 


92 


THE PEOPLE’S HANDBOOK 


and women serve to raise a patient’s thought and feel¬ 
ing above the state where suffering is felt when surgical 
instruments are brought in contact with the physical 
body. 

Doctor Baker Fahenstock, of Philadelphia, in his most 
interesting and authentic work entitled “ Statuvolism,” 
has given a record of many instances where he, together 
with many of his students, has so entirely risen above 
sensibility to pain that difficult and ordinarily dangerous 
operations have been easily and successfully performed 
without suffering being occasioned to those operated 
upon, and entirely without the subsequent weakness 
which is often more dangerous than either the operation 
or the pain it occasions. The all-essential doctrine con¬ 
nected with this subject is the power of the embodied 
human spirit while here on earth to so determine its , 
own seat of conscious functioning that it can regard its 
body of flesh as simply an instrument to be manipulated 
by it entirely at its own discretion. 

Popular fallacies concerning the dangers of hypnotism 
will all vanish when a higher view than the ordinary 
comes to be taken of individual sovereignty. Then will 
intelligent mental cooperation universally succeed to 
the present painful and utterly false belief that some 
have the right to be tyrants, while others must submit 
as slaves in the social organism. 




















































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